Prefects Patroni and Decurions A New Per PDF

PREFECTS, PATRONZ, AND DECURIONS:
A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON THE ALBUM OF CANUSIUM

BENET SALWAY
1 The album
The ‘album of Canusium’ is well known to historians of the High Empire, providing as it does
simultaneously a ‘snapshot’ of the governing class of an Italian community and of the links
between that community and members of the Roman governing elite. It is a bronze plaque,
inscribed in AD 223 with a list of the councillors of an unnamed town that is generally
assumed to be Canusium in Apulia. For over a century this inscription has been a central
document for a number of separate scholarly debates: the first concerning the size,
organization, social structure and vitality of the town councils of Italian communities under
the Empire; the second concerning the role of those honoured as patroni towards their client
communities; and a third, more narrow debate concerning the status of the praetorian
prefecture during the reign of the emperor M. Aurelius Severus Alexander (AD 222-235).
New documentary evidence relating to the career of one of Alexander’s prefects, who also
appears on the album as one of the senatorial patroni, casts light on this last question but at
the same time reveals other problems with considerable ramifications for the wider debates.
It is impossible to arrive at satisfactory solutions.for any one of these questions in isolation.
I have therefore attempted a new approach that considers these debates in close relationship
with one another, without, I hope, succumbing to a circularity of argument, in order finally
to shed some light on the circumstances of the production of the document itself.
The most recent critical edition of the inscription is that by Marina Silvestrini and Marcella
Chelotti in the first volume of Le epigraji romane di Canosa, which comprises an excellent
‘
photograph and critical text, with a line-by-line commentary. The almost completely
undamaged bronze plaque, measuring 0.7 cm thick and 73.5 cm long by 66 cm high, preserves,
in four carefully-laid-out columns, the complete list, inscribed in rustic capitals, of the 164
X
I am indebted to many readers and interlocutors, including Diana Burton, Graham Burton, Claude
Eilers, John Matthews, Henrik Mouritsen, John Rea, Peter Salway, and Roger Tomtin; all errors and
opinions, of course, remain my own.
M. Chelotti, R. Gaeta, V. Morizio, M. Silvestrini (eds),Le epigrafi romane di Canosa I (Bari 1985)
[hereafter ERC], no. 35, whose text largely follows Th.Mommsen, Inscriptiones Regni Neapolitani
Lutim (Leipzig 1852) 36, no. 635 = CIL IX 338 (of which an arbitrarily abbreviated version is to be
found at ILS 6121). Text reproduced with additional commentary: M. Chelotti in Principi, imperatori,
vescovi: duemila anni di storia a Canosa. Monastero di Santa Scolastica, Bari, 27 gennaio - 5 aprile
1992, ed. R. Cassano (Venice 1992) 779-82.
115
116 THE EPIGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE OF ROMAN ITALY
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Fig. 7.1 The album of Canusium: Th. Mommsen's text from CZL IX 338.
BENET SALWAY: PREFECTS, PATRONI, AND DECURIONS I17
Fig. 7.2 The album of Canusium, now in the Museo Archeologico in Florence (inv. 1650),
CIL IX 338.
names of the current active and honorary members of a town council (ordo decurionurn). In
this respect it is unique, which renders its interpretation particularly problematic. Although
several examples of membership lists of professional guilds and subscribers to religious funds
survive from Roman Italy,* the only other surviving album of decurions is a less well pre-
served example on stone from the curia of the colonia at Thamugadi in Numidia, dating from
AD 362/3.3Parallels with this document prove illuminating in several respects. Although,
unlike its African counterpart, the Apulian text does not name the community to which it
pertains, its provenance seems secure. According to the near contemporary account of the
Abbate Damadeno, the bronze swiftly became an object of local wonder after being turned
up in November 1675, during the ploughing of a spot that exhibited the visible remains of an
ancient structure, located just outside the walls of medieval Canosa but within the circuit of
ancient Canusium! The album’s fame soon spread far and wide, especially after it had been
cleaned up by the landowner, baron Ottavio Affaitati, and shipped to Venice. There it was
examined by several scholars and its text copied, knowledge of which was thence widely
disseminated by inclusion in Jacob Spon’s supplement to the then current ~ o r p o r a If . ~the
bronze had not moved far from its ancient location when hit by the plough, the example of the
Thamugadi album suggests that the associated masonry, tentatively identified by Damadeno
as a workshop, military establishment or treasury, actually belonged to the council chamber
or public basilica of Canusium.6
Since it is a fair assumption that the album does relate to ancient Canusium, it is worth
sketching the political and economic background of the town. This community was situated
Eg. CIL IX 1355a-b = ILS 7227 (undated) of the tignarii of Luna; CIL XIV 246 (AD 140) of epulones
and XIV 5356 (AD 179) of corporati contributing to the restoration of temples; XIV 247 (AD 139/145)
and XIV 5357 (AD 262) of unknown associations; XIV 250-51= ILS 6174-75 (AD 152 and 192) and
XIV 252 (AD 200), all of the lenuncularii of Ostia; XIV 256 (undated) of thefabri navales of Ostia;
and, from Ravenna,AE (1977) 26% (undated),of a guild offabri, and its reverse, 265b (7 June 287),
of an unknown association. All of these are on marble plaques.
CIL VIII 2403 + 17903 (= ILS 6122) + AE (1948) 118. Commentary: Th. Mommsen, ‘Observationes
epigraphicae XIX: Album ordinis Thamugadensis’, EE I11 77-84; M. G. Jarrett, ‘Decurions and Priests’,
AJPh 92 (1971) 520-26; and (with integrated text) A. Chastagnol, L’alburn rnunicipale de Tirngad
(Bonn 1978).
Abbas Damadenus, Aes Redivivum, sive Tabula aerea . . . recens e terrae visceribus eruta (1 679) in
Thesaurus antiquitaturn et historiarurn Italiae IX pars V [= vol. 271, ed. J-G. Graevius (Leiden 1723)
cap. xiii, 35-36. Damadeno, whose information came from a local priest, Francesco Crisolito, located
the findspot ‘ad milliare Italicum ab ipsa Matrice Ecclesi2 [today the cathedral] intra circuitum Veteris
Canusii, sed extrh muros Hodierni habetur’ (36). N. Jacobone, Canusiurn. Un’antica e grande citth
dell’Apulia: ricerche di storia e di topografa (Lecce 1925, 2nd edn) 170-71, identified this findspot
with the hillock Lamapopoli in the Piano S. Giovanni in the northeast of the modern built-up area,
though the fact that this seems to be the site of a necropolis suggests caution.
The album was displayed by the antiquities dealer Bernard0 Palotula, in whose establishment it was
examined by Damadeno in 1679 and cardinal Enrico Noris in 1681. I. Sponius, Miscellanea eruditae
antiquitatis (Lyon 1685) 280-81: ‘Tabula aenea imperante Alexandro Severo scuplta & nuper in agro
Cannusino (sic)reperta’, in section VIII, ‘Caesarum imperatorumque inscriptiones’.
Damadenus, Aes Redivivum (above, n.4) cap. xiii, 36: ‘Situs adhuc ruderibus cinctus, magnae
desolatae Fabricae, Praetorii forsitan, aut Aerarii demonstrat antiquitatem. Hic tabulam (uti reperta)
credendum est, fuisse expositam.’
BENET SALWAY: PREFECTS, PATRONI, AND DECURIONS 119
on the Apulian plain, near the river Aufidus, in the ancient territory of the Iapygii. In terms
of political status, Canusium had been one of the native communities allied to Rome until the
Social War. Once incorporated into the Roman system, it remained a simple municipium,
headed by quattuowiri, until the reign of Antoninus Pius, when it was promoted to the highest
status possible in the already privileged context of Italian soil, that of Roman colony, as
Colonia Aureliu Augusta Pia Canusium? In this respect Canusium was not so extraordinary,
since two other cities of the region were promoted to colonial status in the Antonine period.8
However, the responsibility for Canusium’s ‘deduction’ would seem to have been entrusted
to the controversial Athenian sophist and lavish spender, Herodes Atticus, possibly in the role
of consularis p e r Italiam.’ The choice of a Greek senator may have been considered
particularly appropriate because of the culturally mixed nature of the town, whose long history
of interaction with tlie Greek settlements along the coast had given rise to a population known
for its bilingualism.” Economically the most significant aspect of the town’s location was that
it lay at the lower end of one route for transhumant sheep-herding and owed its prosperity
above all to the weaving of woollen garments.” To judge from the comments of Martial and
Suetonius, Canusium’s products were considered smart and luxurious in first-century Rome.’*
Indeed, almost exactly contemporary with the album, a chlamys Canusina features, in a letter
written from Britain, as one of the valuable gifts (gold jewelled brooch, sealskin, etc) with
which a municipal notable of Gallia Lugdunensis was rewarded by an ex-governor whom he
had saved from impeachment; and Canusine cloaks, as a type at least, remained sufficiently
famous empire-wide to gain a specific listing in Diocletian’s edict on maximum prices eighty
The municipium: F. Grelle, ‘Canosa. Le istituzioni, la societk‘, in Societh romana e produzione

schiuvistica I , eds A. Giardina and A. Schiavone (Rome-Bari 1981) 181-225,at 206-08. Titulature of
the colonia: CIL IX 344 = ERC 52.
* Lupiae (modern Lecce) in Calabria, under M. Aurelius, and Aecae (modern Troia) in Apulia,
sometime before AD 195. However, I find unconvincing F. Grelle’s suggestion that all three deductions
are linked to work on the via Traiana, as signalled in M. Silvestrini, Un itinerario epigrajico lungo la
via Truiana: Aecae, Herdonia, Canusium (Bari 1999) 11-12.
‘Deduction’, the process of establishing a Roman colonia, traditionally involved the delegation of the
responsibility for the physical and legal settlement of the community to a specially empowered
individual: L. J. F. Keppie, Colonisation and veteran settlement in Italy (Rome 1983) 96-97. Philostr.
VS 2.1.5 [p. 5511: Atticus’ (re)foundation of Canusium along with an ill-fated enterprise at Oricum in
Epirus. Date and circumstances of the promotion: F. Grelle, Canosa romana (Rome 1993) 120-43.
lo Hor. S. 1.10.20. The decurions on the album exhibit a high proportion of Greek cognomina, which
given the cultural background, are as likely to be indigenous to the native community as to indicate
descendants of freed slaves: P. D. A. Garnsey, ‘Aspects of the decline of the urban aristocracy in the
empire’, ANRWII.1 (1974) 229-52, at 247, with addendum by W. Scheidel in Cities, peasants undfood
in classical antiquity: essays in social and economic history (Cambridge 1998) 26; Chelotti in ERC I
(above, n.1) 63-64.
l1 Plin.Nut. 8.73 [48] (190). Political and social history of the town: Grelle, ‘Canosa’ (above, n.7)
181-225,504-05and Canosa romana (above, n.9); local institutions: Silvestrini in ERC I1 (Bari 1990)
221-30.
12Mart.2.45,9.22.9, 14.127.1, 129, 155;Suet.Nero30.3.
years later.I3 In the second century at least one person, presumably a local, had been wealthj
enough to bequeath the funds to establish a public alimentary scheme for the community.“
Although circumstantial, this evidence does paint a picture of a community of above-average
prosperity.
Thus, it should not be forgotten that the magisterial structure that the album depicts belongs
specifically to an economically prosperous Roman colonia in Italy and, significantly, one thal
was granted its charter as recently as c. AD 160. Indeed, Francesco Grelle ascribes the high
profile of men with imperial nomina in the ranks of the magistrates (Tibb. Claudii, TT. Flavii,
PP. and TT. Aelii) to an influx of new men in an expansion of the ordo at the deduction of the
colonia that swamped the old municipal Blite.” While we do not possess the text of the charter
of any such community of this date, various aspects can be illuminated by reference to the
surviving portions of provincial Roman charters of earlier periods: the Lex Coloniae
Genetivae Iuliae of Urso, drafted under Caesar’s dictatorship, and those of the municipia with
the Latin right, also from Spain, of the Flavian period.I6 Common points between these two
types of charter demonstrate that, after 90 BC at least, their drafters were able to draw upon
much shared material, while at the same time adapting the content to local conditions and
incorporating changes in practice over time.” Even taking these into account, however, all
that is known for certain concerning the circumstances of this album’s production is what is
emblazoned across the top of the album in the first three lines of the text: ‘L. Marius
Maximus, for the second time, and L. Roscius Aelianus being consuls [ie. AD 2231, M.
Antonius Priscus and L. Annius Secundus duoviri quinquennales saw to it that the names of
l3 CIL XI11 3162 = ILTG 341 (Aragenua Viducassum), left face: Ti. Claudius Paulinus legatus Augusti
propraetore of Britannia inferior c. AD 220 lists the presents with which he is rewarding T. Sennius
Sollemnis for having foiled an attempt by the concilium Galliarum to vote for Paulinus’ prosecution.
M. Giacchero, Edictum Diocletiani et Collegarum depretiis rerum venalium (Genoa 1974) ch. 19,l.
50.
I4AE(1972) 118 = ERC51: benefactor’s name lost, but the parallel of Pliny’s scheme (CIL V 5262)
for his home town, Comum, suggests that such generosity would have been prompted by local
patriotism.
l5 Grelle, Canosa romana (above, n.9) 117, 142, for whom the old municipal Clite is represented by,
eg., the Annii, Dasimii, Ennii and Clodii, amongst whom the majority comprised those with names of
Osco-Umbrian origin. Indeed, Grelle detects only two gentilicia of IapygiadMessapian origin
(Dasimius, Artorius) amongst the sixty-one family groups on the album, though it is supposed that this
eclipse of the original inhabitants was the result of a gradual migration of people from the central
Apennines along the transhumance routes, rather than any deliberate upheaval: M. Silvestrini, ‘Le elites
municipali dai Gracchi a Nerone: Apulia e Calabria’ in Les ilites municipales de l’ltalie pininsulaire
des Gracques ir Niron. Actes de la table ronde internationale de Clermont-Ferrand (28-30 novembre
199I), ed. M. Ckbeillac-Gervasoni (Naples-Rome 1996) 31-46, at.42-43.
l6 Len Coloniae Genetivae: M. H. Crawford and A. Stylow in Roman Statutes I, ed. M. H. Crawford
(London 1996) 393-454, no. 25. Consolidated text of the Havian municipal law: F. Lamberti, *Tabulae
Irnitanaer e NIUSRomanurn. (Napoli 1993), 269-373 [hereafterLen Irnitana].
l7 M. H. Crawford, ‘Roman towns and their charters: legislation and experience’ in Social complexity
and the development of towns in Iberiafrom the Copper Age to the second century AD, eds B. Cunliffe
and S. Keav r= PBA 86 (19991 421-30.
the decurions were inscribed in bronze.”’ For, of the charter texts, there nowhere survives a
title detailing the regulations for drawing up and publishing the album decurionum (register
of councillors) or laying out the duties of quinquennules or duoviri as ~ e n s o r e s . ~By
’ analogy
with the quinquennial censors of the republican period at Rome, it seems likely that it was the
principal function of the duoviri quinquennales to perform a census of the entire community
every five years, naturally including a definition of the curial order, of which this album is a
record.” In publishing the album of decurions, Antonius Priscus and Annius Secundus were
almost certainly fulfilling one of their statutory duties as quinquennales but, equally, it is
unlikely that they were compelled to record it in bronze. Although the Lex Zmirana does
contain a title explicitly stipulating its own display on bronze as a matter of urgency?’ to
judge by the surviving title concerning the publication of the current collection of provincial
legislation, any missing title on publication of the album decurionum - a document of
similarly transitory currency - would not have dictated the precise medium but would rather
have concerned itself with issues of legibility and accessibility.” It would seem most probable
that white-washed wooden boards - the regular medium for the publication of semi-permanent
public notices - would normally be used for alba decurionum, as their very name suggest^.'^
‘L. Mario Maximo 11, L. Roscio Aeliano cos. I M. Antonius Priscus, L. Annius Secundus IIvir(i)
quinquenn(a1es) I nomina decurionum in aere incidenda curaverunt.’ The lettering of line 1 is 4 cm high,
that of lines 2-3 is 3 cm, compared with c. 1 cm for the columns of names.
l9 Any sections of the Lex Irnitana relevant to such activity have most likely been lost in the lacuna
which covers the first nineteen titles, since this ends with titles defining the role of the aediles (19) and
quaestors (20). Titles 30-3 1 are all that relates to the replenishment of the ordo. While there is frequent
reference to duoviri, no mention of quinquennales survives anywhere in either the Lex Coloniae
Genetivae or Len Irnitana.
O
’ Silvestrini in ERC I (above, n.1) 53. Rather antiquated survey: R. v. D. Magoffin, The
quinquennales: an historical study (Baltimore 1913), 1-50 [543-921; see also W. Langhammer, Die
rechtliche und soziale Stellung der magistratus municipales und der decuriones in der ifbergangsphase
der Stzidte von sich selbstverwaltenden Gemeinden zu Vollzugsorganen des spatantiken Zwangsstaates
(2.-4. Jahrhundert der romischen Kaiserzeit) (Wiesbaden 1973) 196-7 and F. Jacques, Privil2ge de
liberti. Politique impe‘riale et autonomie municipale duns les cite‘s de 1 ’Occident romain (161-244)
(Rome 1984) 576-9. In CIL XIV 375,ll. 7-8, the coloniu of Ostia offers honour to a ‘IIvir(0) censolriae
pot(estatis) quinquennal(i)’ and CIL I1 1256 Osset (Baetica), commemorates the noteworthy
performance of the census by the duumvir of a Spanish municipium: ‘L. Caesio L.f. Pollio[ni]l aed(i1i)
IIvir(o) censu et I duomviratu bene I et e r(e) p(ub1ica) act0 municip(es).’ Regulations governing the
procedure for the census of an Italian community in the Late Republic are provided by the Tabula
Heracleensis [= Crawford, Roman Statutes (above, n.161, no . 24],11. 142-56.
21 LexIrnitana, title 95 [Tab. X, col. C, 11. 8-91: the duumvir iure dicundo is to ensure that ‘haec lex
primo quolque tempore in aes incidatur’.
” Lex Imitana, title 85 [Tab. IX, col. B, 11. 28-29]: ‘Magistratusut in public0 habeant album eius qui
prouinciam optinebit exque eo ius dicant’, the contents of which should be displayed (1. 37) ‘ut d(e)
p(1ano) r(ecte) l(egi) p(ossint)’; compare title 86 [Tab. IX, col. C, 1. 231 where the same formula is
repeated of the publication of the yearly-changing tabulae listing those chosen as iudices, again without
dictating any precise medium.
23 Regular publication of municipal alba as traditional practice: NMuj 7.18 (6 November 458) telling
the praetorian prefect Basilius to urge the provincial governors to compel the principales vel seniores
of each city ‘tam curiarum quam reliquorum corporum albos, quos conscripsit vetustas, proferre’.
Given the annual turnover of civic magistracies, as a precise guide to the ordo decurionum,
the album of 223 would be out of date within a year and ought to have been superseded by
another in five years, if not before. The decision to inscribe the album of 223 in such a durable
material suggests it had a significance beyond that of a regular census of decurions. The other
types of document consigned by communities to the durability of bronze or stone (eg.
charters, imperial legislation, tabulae patronatus, imperial letters granting or confirming
privileges, etc.) certainly suggest that the choice of bronze reflects a desire for permanent
commemoration.24Indeed, the Elder Pliny made this point in relation to the use of bronze to
record public decrees and it is explicit in the wording of the ordo salutationis decreed by the
governor of Numidia of AD 363, which was ‘engraved in bronze for the memory of
perpetuity’.2s Were the album of 223 meant to be as ephemeral as its content would suggest,
then we might expect to find that it had been reversed and re-used for a later text, as is the
case with several other public bronzes that out-lived their usefulness.26On the contrary, not
only was the album never re-used but also the erasure of the name of the fourteenth senatorial
patronus, C. Petronius Magnus, suggests that it was still on public display and considered
worth emending thirteen years later in AD 235, the date of the execution of a certain patrician
consular called Magnus on charges of conspiracy against the emperor maxi mi nu^.^^ I propose,
therefore, that the choice of bronze for this album was a decided deviation from the norm, to
which the quinquennales were drawing deliberate attention in the heading.
In the light of this consideration, the parallel with the album of Thamugadi is particularly
instructive. Inscribed on three stone blocks of disparate origin, the listing of the ordo of 36213
was displayed in the interior of the curia, from.which there is no evidence of any other
C. Williamson, ‘Monuments of bronze: Roman legal documents on bronze tablets’, ClAnt 6 (1987)
160-83, especially 169.
25 Plin. Nut. 34.21 (99): ‘Usus aeris ad perpetuitatem monimentorum iam pr!dem tralatus est tabulis
aeris, in quibus publicae constitutiones incidentur’ (The use of bronze for the perpetuity of monuments
has long since been adopted for the bronze tablets on which public decrees are inscribed). CIL VIII
17896 (Thamugadi), II. 1-6: ‘Ex au[ctori]tate Ulpi Mariscialni V.C. consularis sexfascalis I promoti primo
a domino nostro I invicto principe Iuliano, ordo sallutationis factus et ita at (sic) perpetuil[t]atis
memoriam aere incisus.’ This is a stone copy of the original at Cirta: Th. Mommsen, ‘Observationes
epigraphicae XL: Ordo salutationis sportularumque sub imp. Iuliano in provincia Numidia’, EE 5
(1884) 626-46; L. Leschi, ‘L‘album municipal de Timgad et l’ordo salutationis du consulaire Ulpius
Mariscianus’, REA 50 (1948) 71-100. Another explicit statement of choice of permament medium: CIL
I1 1423 = ILS 6092 = FIRA’ I 74, an imperial letter on the collection of vectigal which ‘IIviri C.
Cornelius Severus et M. Septimlius Severus publica pecunia in aere I inciderunt.’ (11. 17-19).
26 Eg. the senatusconsultumfrom Larinum of AD 19, reused for a tabula patronatus in 344: AE (1978)
145 and AE (1992) 301 = N. Stelluti, Epigrafi di Larino e della bassa Frentana (Campobasso 1997)
nos 100a+b.
27 Col. I, 1. 15: read as ‘C. Heronius Magnus’ by Damadenus, Aes Redivivum (above, n.4) cap. x, 26,
then as ‘C. Misonius Magnus’ by R. Fabretti, Inscriptionum antiquarum quae in aedibus paternis
asservantur explicatio (Rome 1699) 598-601, No 9. In the nineteenth century Th. Mommsen reported
that B. Borghesi was the first to read ‘C. Petronius [- - -]us’, whence ‘[[C. Petronius Magnus]]’ in
Inscriptiones Regni Neapolitani (n. 1) 635, followed in all subsequent editions. Magnus’ rebellion: Hdn.
7.1.4-8 (compare SHA V.Max. 10.1, Trig.Tyr. 32. I); though K. Dietz, Senatus contra principem:
Untersuchungen zur senatorischen Opposition gegen Kaiser Maximinus Thrax (Munich 1981) 188
seems to consider the identification far from certain.
BENET SALWAY: PREFECTS, PATRONZ, AND DECURIONS 123
permanently inscribed alba from either the preceding or succeeding periods.” Thus this album
would appear to be a similarly unique document. Moreover, in this case the inclusion of certain
categories of persons indicates a specific motivation for the trouble taken to produce this
inscribed list. For the decision to record the membership at this juncture was almost certainly
inspired by the emperor Julian’s legislation that returned Christian clerics, as well as those
working in the provincial o f i c i a of the imperial administration, to their financial obligations
as municipal dec~rions.‘~ Accordingly, the names of these clerici and ofSiciales are found
appended to the list of regular councillors.” In short, the parallel of the album of Thamugadi
reinforces the suspicion that, as argued already by Damadeno, the album of Canusium is not
typical of its genre and that it was considered at the time to commemorate a singular event.31
2. Decuriones
Just as with the senatorial order at Rome, the group of the decurions represented a political
6lite that was, with the possible exception of wealthy freedmen, largely coincident with the
economic Clite of the ~ommunity.~’ Not only was the right to membership of this governing
class determined by a wealth qualification (e.g H!3 100,000at Comum c. AD but also
election to a magistracy meant shouldering the expenses of office, including a statutory charge
(summa honoraria) of at least several thousand ~ e s t e r t i iFurthermore,
.~~ there was a growing
28 Archaeological context and dating: Chastagnol, L’album municipal (above, n.3) 5-13, 40-42;
H. Hortskotte, ‘Die Datierung des Decurionenverzeichnisses von Timgad und die spatromische
Klerikergesetzgebung’,Historia 23 (1984) 238-47.
29 Clerici: CTh 12.1.50 = 13.1.4 (13 March 362); Jul. Ep. 54 [36 Wright] to the citizens of the province
of Byzacena (AD 362), repealed by Valentinian in CTh 12.1.59 (12 September 364), also to the
Byzaceni. OfJiciales:Amm.Marc. 25.4.21; Jul. Or. 18.135, reiterated by Valentinian in CTh 12.1.58
(13 May 364) but explicitly revoked by Theodosius in CTh 12.1.96 (5 March 383). Chastagnol,
L’album municipal (above, n.3) 33-37, and L’e‘volutionpolitique, sociale et e‘conomique du monde
romain de Diocle‘tien ii Julien. La mise en place du re‘gime du Bas-Empire (284-363) 2nd edn (Paris
1982), 300-02; C. Jxpelley, Les cite‘s de 1’Afrique romaine au Bas-Empire I: La permanence d’une
civilisation municipale (Paris 1979) 276-78, 282.
30 Chastagnol, L’album municipal (above, n.3) col. V, 1. 18 - col. VI, 1. 59: clerici (1 1 names), milites
qui in ofwicio) d(o)m(ini)vicari(i) m(i1itant) (5 names), milites qui in o m c i o ) d(o)m(ini)consularis
m(i1itant)(37+ names), in ofJicio praefecti annon(a)e (23+ names), qui in M c i o ratio(na1is)m(i1itant)
(5 names).
31 Damadenus, Aes Redivivum (above, n.4) cap. x, 26, citing the analogy of the marble alba (CIL VI
1770 and XIV 246) recording the colleges of epulones who put up money for the restoration of temples.
32 P. D. A. Garnsey, Social status and legal privilege in the Roman Empire (Oxford 1970) 242-5.
Excluding the album, freedmen (liberti) account for fifty-six percent of the epigraphically attested
individuals at Canusium: M. A. Birardi, ‘Strati sociali a Canusium nella documentazione del CIL IX.
Ricerca onomastica’, AFLB 23 (1980) 197-219.
33 Plin. Ep. 1.19; a figure, which is incidentally approximately one tenth of the senatorial census, may
have been a more widespread norm: R. P. Duncan-Jones, The Economy of the Roman Empire:
Quantitative Studies (Cambridge 1982,2nd edn) 243.
34 A wide range ofsummae honorariae (W 2,000 to 10,000+)is attested: Duncan-Jones, Economy
(above, n.33) 147-155.
tendency for communities to charge an entry fee for membership of the ordo it~elf.’~ The ordo
decurionum of Canusium was long considered to represent a standard for Italian communities
of the imperial period but considerable doubts have been raised concerning its typicality, and
it now seems likely that the size of municipal ordines was ~ a r i a b l e . ’Therefore,
~ although
neither the census qualification nor the level of summae honorariae are known for Canusium
in AD 223, both the size of the ordo and number of annual magistracies can be taken as some
reflection of the prosperity of its population and the size of its public b ~ d g e t . ’Indeed,
~ if
above average, this may well have been something in which to take pride.
After the thirty-nine senatorial and equestrian pafroni of the colonia (on whom see section
3 below), the list of local magistrates and ex-magistrates is divided into seven descriptive
categories, the first five of which are unproblematic, taking their names from the magisterial
grades. Thus the list is headed by those seven individuals who had performed the
quinquennial duumvirate, termed quinquennalicii, followed in turn by four men who had been
directly adlected to that status,’* then the twenty-nine duumviralicii, nineteen aedilicii, and
nine quaestoricii. In the absence of either any knowledge of the provisions of the charter of
Canusium or any comparable sections in what survives of other charters, a near-contemporary
opinion of Ulpian, which survives in the Digest, under the title de albo scribendo, does
provide a check against which to assess the normality of the general layout of the Canusine
album.39
35 Introduction of entry charges in Bithynian communities c. AD 110: Plin. Ep.Tra. 10.112. Garnsey,
Social status (above, 11.32) 243-44 considers them a widespread phenomenon; certainly the special
favour of adlection gratis granted to the six-year-old N. Popidius Celsinus at Pompeii (CIL X 846)
implies that a fee was normal, at least for adlection.
36 J. Nicols, ‘On the standard size of the ordo decurionum’, ZRG 105 (1988) 712-19, H. Mouritsen,
‘The Album of Canusium and the councils of Roman Italy’, Chiron 28 (1998) 229-54; but compare
V. Weber, ‘Die Munizipalaristokratie’ in Gesellschafr und Wirtschafr des romischen Reiches im 3.
Jahrhundert: Studien zu ausgewahlten Problemen, ed. K.-P. Johne (Berlin 1993) 290.
37 R. P. Duncan-Jones, Structure and scale in the Roman economy (Cambridge 1990) 177 produces
figures for a hypothetical public budget on this basis, assuming a summa honoraria per duumvir of +IS
8,000.
38 Col. II,1.9: ‘allecti inter quinq(uenna1icios)’;adlectio was promotion to a rank conferred by office-
holding without actually performing the office. Silvestrini, in ERC I (above, n.1) 53, seems to consider
these individuals to be Canusine citizens from outside the ordo who have been adlected to this exalted
category, without having progressed through the lower magistracies, in recognition of special services
rendered to the community. It is equally probable that some are highly respected senior decurions who
had followed a conventional magisterial career but whom the ordo had been unable to reward with the
quinquennialiciate for lack of opportunity; compare ornamenta decurionalia awarded to freedmen: eg.
L. Laberius L. 1. Optatus ornamentis censorfiis) honoratus (CIL X 60 = ILS 6464).
39 Even if the charter of Canusium never possessed a title de albo scribendo, it probably had a provision
akin to that under title 93 (de iure municipum) of the Lex Irnitana, that Roman civil law is to be
followed on any issue that the charter itself fails to cover (Tab. X, col. B, 1. 52 - col. C, 1. 2). Ulpian’s
advice ought to reflect current standard practice, given his descriptive rather than prescriptive approach
to social norms and customs in the de ofi procos: F. G. B. Millar, ‘A new approach to the Roman
jurists’, JRS 76 (1986) 272-80, at 280.
ULPIANUS LlBRO TERTIO DE OWICIO Ulpian, de officio pkoconsulis, book 3.

PROCONSULIS.Decuriones in albo The decurions ought to be entered in
ita scriptos esse oportet, ut lege the album according to the prescription
municipali praecipitur: sed si lex of the municipal law: but if the law says
cessat, tunc dignitatis erunt spect- nothing, then rank will have to be
andae, ut scribantur eo ordine, quo regarded, so that they are entered
quisque eorum maximo honore in according to the ranking of the highest
municipio functus est: puta qui municipal office each of them has ful-
duumviratum gesserunt, cellat, et filled: e.g those who have held the du-
inter duumvirales antiquissimus umvirate, if this office is pre-eminent,
quisque prior: deinde hi, qui secun- and among the duurnvirales whoever is
do post duumviratum honore in re most senior, first: next those, who have
publica functi sunt: post eos qui fulfilled the office following the
tertio et deinceps: mox hi qui nullo duumvirate in the constitution: after
honore functi sunt, prout quisque this those who (have fulfilled) the third
eorum in ordinem venit. In sente- and so forth: until those who have ful-
ntiis quoque dicendis idem ordo filled no office, in the order each of
spectandus est, quem in albo scrib- them came into the (curial) order. For
endo diximus. each in declaring his decision the same
(Dig. 50.3.1) order is to be regarded as that in which
we have said the album must be
written.
The assumption that similar principles were also in operation in Canusium - ie. ranking of the
most senior grades first and then, within each grade, by seniority of office-holding - is
confirmed by observation of the position of the two commissioning magistrates, Antonius
Priscus and Annius Secundus. Not only do they duly appear as the last two (ie. most recent)
quinquennales (col. 11,ll. 7-8)but also they precede, even as the most junior of the quinquen-
nales, those simply ‘allecti inter quinq(uenna1icios)’ (col. 11, 11. 10-14). This incidentally
confirms the hierarchy of magistracies of the coloniu of Canusium to be (from bottom to top):
quaestor, aedilis, duumvir, duumvir q u i n q u e n n ~ l i sHowever,
.~~ this does not imply that this
was a rigid sequence of magistracies through which an ambitious decurion had.to progress!’
On the other hand, the pairing of duoviri quinquennules in the album’s heading and the logic
of the appellation duumvir can be taken to indicate that, as with Roman consuls, these senior
40 Opinion varies as to whether the adjective quinquennalis simply attached to those duoviri who
happened to be in office in the fifth year of every censorial cycle, or whether the quinquennaliciate was
a separate, and higher office, from the annual duumvirate iure dicundo. The existence of a class of men
allecti inter quinquennalicios (col. 11, 1. 9), suggests the latter is true, at least at Canusium: Jarrett,
‘Decurions and Priests’ (above, n.3) 516.
41 An assumption questioned in relation to the pre-colonial period at Canusium: F. Grelle, ‘Una carriera
municipale a Canusium’, Labeo 26 (1980) 327-55, at 330-32; and more generally: Jacques, Privikge
de liberte‘ (above, n.20) 489-93, R. P. Saller, Patriarchy, property and death in the Roman family
(Cambridge 1994) 17-18.
magistracies comprised a college of However, the relative proportions in each of the

magisterial categories recorded on the album cannot be used to determine the number of
annual quuestores and uediles at Canusium, though it is often assumed to be two of each. This
remains an unknown, and important, factor in analysing the dynamics of the magisterial
structure and vitiates its use as the basis for analyses of life-e~pectancy:~
As discussed above in section 1, the term quinquennules appears to distinguish duoviri with
censorial duties, and the surviving portions of civic charters are quite informative as to the
duties of the other magistracies attested at Canusium (duoviri, uediles, quuestores). However,
explicit definitions of nature and membership of the last two groups, the peduni and prue-
textuti, nowhere survive, despite the fact that at Canusium, numbering thirty-two and twenty-
five respectively, they comprise the first and third largest categories of non-patronal decurions.
Of the two, thepruetextuti pose less of a problem. The term clearly designates those who wore
a distinctive style of dress, the toga pruetextu, and is attested elsewhere epigraphically as a
description of young members of the municipal 61ite.@It is thus generally accepted that the
pruetextuti are equivalent to the luticluvii of the Roman imperial senate: young men of establ-
ished senatorial families or, by special imperial indulgence, the sons of men outside the senat-
orial order, who constituted the future membership of the senate.4s As might then be expected,
various analyses have shown that the Canusine pruetextuti are dominated by those who share
pruenominu and gentiliciu with more senior members of the curial order, suggesting family
links;46and, as such, the pruetextuti are considered the designated candidates for future mem-
bership of the local Assuming the pruetextuti to fall below the age-threshold for the
exercise of full membership of the curia (ie. usually the age of t~enty-four)~’ and leaving aside
42 Annual pairs of quaestors at the Sullan colonia of

Praeneste: CIL XIV 2966,ll. 4,7, 10, 13 and AE
(1909) 76; M. F. Petraccia Lucernoni, I questori municipali dell’Italiu antica (Rome 1988) 107-10.
43 The album contributes to discussions of life-expectancy by Duncan-Jones, Structure and scale
(above, n.37) 93-96, 100-01,103; compare T. G. Parkin, Demography and Roman society (Baltimore
and London 1992), 137-38, W. Scheidel, ‘Emperors, aristocrats and the grim reaper: towards a
demographic profile of the Roman Clite’; CQ 49 (1999) 254-8 1, at 263-66.
44 Praetextatipueri at Ferentinum: CIL X 5852 = ILS 6271, second-centuryAD.
45 R. J. A. Talbert, The senute of imperial Rome (Princeton 1984) 11-15.

46 Garnsey, ‘Decline ofthe urban aristocracy’ (above, n.lO) 246-48, Silvestrini in ERC I1 (above, n.11)
226, F. Dal Cason Patriarca, ‘Considerazioni demografiche sulla lista della Tabula di Canusium’,
Athenaeum 83 (1995) 245-64, at 255. However, in the absence of full filiations, we should be wary of
generally assuming blood relationships on the basis of shared nominu alone; conversely, equally
important maternal links are practically invisible onomastically.
47 Damadenus, Aes Redivivum (above, n.4) cap. xxx, 105-6,Jacques, PriviOge de liberte‘ (above, 11.20)
486-89, W.Jongman, The Economy and Society of Pompeii (Amsterdam 1988), 317-29, Chelotti, ‘La
documentazione epigrafica’ in Principi, imperatori, vescovi (above, n. 1) 782, M. Kleijwegt, ‘The Salii
from Amiternum and the role of the praetextati in municipal councils’, Historia 42 (1993) 110-17.
48 Th. Mommsen, ‘Die Erblichkeit des Decurionats’ in Festschrgt zu Otto Hirschfelds sechzehnten
Geburtstage: Beitrage zur alten Geschichte und griech.-rom. Altertumskunde (Berlin 1903) 4-5,
considered the praetextuti under-age decurions and suggested that there was a regulation fixing their
number (to twenty-five in this instance). Twenty-five years appears to have been the age of majority for
these purposes in the early third century: Ulp. ad edictum 11 (Dig. 50.4.8), ‘Ad rem publicam
administrandam ante vicensimum quintum annum, vel ad munera quae non patrimonii sunt vel honores,
theputroni, a seductively tidy total of 100decurions was reached for the effective membership
of the council; which figure was widely upheld as that of the standard size for the council of a
Roman community, until the publication of the charter of the municipality of Irni in 1986
revealed an untidy total of sixty-three for its c0uncil.4~It has since been demonstrated that there
was a considerable diversity in the size of town councils. Furthermore, Henrik Mouritsen has
suggested that Canusium’s council of 100 lies at the upper end of the range, putting it in
company with large settlements such as the bustling ports of Ostia and Puteoli, as well as,
probably, the prestigious coloniu of Beneventum.” Mouritsen has argued that the greater than
average size of Canusium’s council can be related to the perceived oddity in its composition;
that is the enigmatic category of peduni.
For the term pedunus, being otherwise unattested in precisely this form, is not obviously
analogous to the other adjectival nouns that attach to the decurial categories. Its etymology
from pes (foot) evidently indicates a humbleness of status.’’ Whether or not indicative of a
lack of full decurial rights, there is, nevertheless, general agreement that, in contrast to the
under-age members-designate (the praetextuti), the designation of pedunus denotes an adult
whose membership of the-council is owed to adlection rather than office-holding and who has
admitti minores non oportet. Denique nec decuriones creantur vel creati suffragium in curia ferunt.’ (It
is not proper for minors before their twenty-fifth year to be admitted to the administration of the
community or to munera other than patrimonial or to office. Indeed, they are not to be appointed as
decurions or, if appointed, do not vote in the council.) As for the lower limit, Jacques, Privilkge de
liberte‘ (n.20) 487 considered seventeen to be the minimum age for praetextuti; Dal Cason Patriarca,
‘Considerazioni demografiche’ (above, n.46) 259 suggests that some may have been considerably
younger.
49 J.
Gonzdez, ‘The Lex Irnitana: a new copy of the Flavian municipal law’, JRS 76 (1986), 147-243
= AE (1986) 333, title 31 (Tab. 111, col. C, 11.43,50).The 100-decurionstandard was enshrined by Th.
Mommsen, Riimische Staatsrecht 111.2 (Leipzig 1888,3rd edn) 845 n.1 and widely repeated thereafter,
including in recent times: Jarrett, ‘Decurions and Priests’ (above, n.3) 514-15, M. Clavel and
P. Uvkque, Villes et structures urbaine duns L’Occident romain (Paris 1971) 177, Langhammer, Recht.
und soz Stellung (above, n.20) 200, Garnsey, ‘Decline of the urban aristocracy’ (above, n.lO) 242,245,
Duncan-Jones, Economy2 (above, 11.33) 283-85, Jacques, Privilkge de liberte‘ (above, n.20) 229-30,
G. Alfijldy, Riimische Sozialgeschichte (Wiesbaden 1984, 2nd edn) 110.
50Nicols, ‘On the standard size’ 712-19, Mouritsen, ‘The Album of Canusium’ 229-54, especially
238-45 (both above, n.36).
5 1 Jarrett, ‘Decurions and Priests’ (above, n.3) 515: ‘so called from the bench on which they sat’.
Damadeno, Aes Redivivum (above, n.4) cap. xxix, 101-2, Mommsen, Rom. StaatsrechflIII.2 (above,
n.49) 962 n.2, likened them to a supposed group of constitutionally underprivileged ‘backbenchers’of
the republican senate at Rome on the basis of A. Gellius’ equation of the term pedaneus (sic) with
pedarius (3.18.10). This the republican antiquarian Varro (at Gel. 3.18.5) defined as a yet to be
officially enrolled senator who had no right to vote, and which Cic. Att. 1.l9.l, 1.20.4 used pejoratively
of his undistinguished contemporaries in the senate; compare Fest. p. 232 [Lindsay], 11. 6-10, S.V.
pedarius. In the apparatus criticus to ERC No 35, by Chelotti and Silvestrini, pedanus (col. III,1. 31)
is considered a misspelling of pedaneus; compare A. O’Brien Moore, ‘Senatus’, RE Suppl. VI (1935)
col. 680, M. Bonnefond-Coudry, Le se‘nat de la rkpublique romaine de la guerre d’Hanniba1 6
Auguste:pratiques deliberatives et prise de de‘cision (Rome 1989) 655-57, and Mouritsen, ‘The Album
of Canusium’ (above, n.50) 245-46.
not yet held any magisterial office.52Thus, in accordance with Ulpian’s prescription, although
some peduni might be quite mature individuals, they - as also the praetextati - naturally rank
below even the most junior offce-holders and ought to be ordered internally according to the
date of their membership.
However, it is not possible to map out the dynamics of Canusium’s magisterial system on
the basis of the ordering of the categories alone. Since the peduni comprise nearly a third of
the effective ordo, an explanation of the role of the status of pedanus is crucial to
understanding the structure of the civic career. The existence of this sizeable group was
related by both Peter Garnsey and Michael Jarrett to an observation in the later third-century
compilation, known as the Sententiae Pauli, which comes in the course of a discussion of
suitability for holding offices ( h 0 n o r - e ~ ) : ~ ~
PAULUS LIBRO PRIM0 [Ps.-] Paulus, Sententiae, book 1. He

SENTENTIARUM. ... IS, qui n0n Sit who is not a decurion cannot hold the
decurio, duumviratu vel aliis duumvirate or other offices, on the
honoribus fungi non potest, quia ground that plebeians are prohibited
decurionum honoribus plebeii fungi from holding the offices of decurions.
prohibentur.
(Dig. 50.2.7.2)
Garnsey was pursuing the idea that late imperial legislation compelling a greater degree of
inheritance of decurial status could be seen as prefigured in an increased closedness of the
ordo decurionum to infiltration by ‘outsiders’. To this end Garnsey and Jarrett both indepen-
dently concluded that decurio in this passage was to be understood to exclude the praetextati.
Thus the pedani were identified as constituting an intermediate stage between the praetextati
and the magisterial grades; the pedani would thus form exclusively the pool of decurions from
which future magistracies would be filled.” However, their view has not found much favour.
In contrast, despite variant emphases, several studies of the demographic dynamics of the
album have concurred in discerning a difference in the social composition of the two junior
groups, seeing the greater portion of the pedani as a disadvantaged group in comparison with
the praetextati, both in terms of social origin and/or of their family ties with members of the
52 Eg. Damadeno, Aes Redivivum (above, n.4) cap. xxix, 101-02, Mommsen, Rom. Staatsrechp 111.2
(above, n.49) 964, Jarrett, ‘Decurions and Priests’ (above, n.3) 515, Langhammer, Recht. und soz.
Stellung (above, n.20) 199, Jacques, Privil2ge de liberte‘ (above, n.20) 478, Chelotti in ERC I (above,
n.1) 53, Mouritsen, ‘The Album of Canusium’ (above, n.50) 244-47.
53 Gamsey, Social status (above, n.32) 253-54 and ‘Decline of the urban aristocracy’ (above n.lO) 249,
Jarrett, ‘Decurions and Priests’ (above, n.3) 515. Although ascribed to the Severan jurist Iulius Paulus,
the Sententiae are generally acknowledged to be a compilation of the latter part of the third century:
D. Liebs, ‘Pseudo-Paulus I’ in Handbuch der lateinischen Literatur, 5 . Restauration und Erneuerung:
Die lateinische Literatur von 284 bis 374 n. Chr., Miillers Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft 8 ed.
R. Herzog (Munich 1989) 65-57, 3 507.1.
54 Jarrett,‘Decurions and Priests’ (above, n.3) 515, Garnsey, ‘Declineof the urban aristocracy’ (above
n. 10) 249.
higher grades.5s Recent studies of the demographic structure of the ordo, assuming that
automatic entry via the quaestorship produced only two new members per a n n ~ m , ’have ~
calculated that an ordo of 100 members could not maintain itself.s7 In the light of this,
Mouritsen prefers to see the category of peduni as comprising primarily outsiders to the
existing curial elite, adlected by the quinquennial censors in order to make up the number of
decurions to the theoretical maximum.s8 On this analysis, the large category of peduni at
Canusium does not reflect any fundamental change in the magisterial structure but is, rather,
a product of expansion of the ordo in the absence of any adjustment to the number of annual
magistracies - a side-effect of imperial indulgences allowing communities to raise the
maximum membership of their councils. Peduni are not, then, an unprecedented phenomenon
but the coalescence of an already existing, more sporadic, phenomenon (the udlectus) into a
recognisable grouping. Mouritsen thus argues against the interpretation of pedunus as
denigratory, preferring to understand its connotation as simply ‘ordinary member’; ie.
’ a neo-
logism developed to describe this phenomenon.
This interpretation of the pedani opens the way to a further significant reconsideration of
our understanding of their role in the structure of the ordo. Mouritsen has emphasised the
homogeneously inferior position of the peduni. In contrast, although I am not as pessimistic
about their prospects, I tend to agree with Franqois Jacques’ analysis of them as a
heterogeneous group in both age and social origin.s9 This, I suggest, is the result of a
combination of predictable factors contingent upon the magisterial structure as determined
by Mouritsen. For, the pool from which the quinquennules might conscribe peduni would
55 Jacques, Privilbge de liberte‘ (above, 11.20) 478-82,508-26, 569-70, Chelotti in ERC I (above, n.1)
53-64, Jongman, Pompeii (above, n.47) 326-29, Silvestrini in ERC I1 (above, n.11) 226, M. Chelotti,
‘Mobilith sociale e legami familiari alla luce dell’albo dei decurioni di Canosa (CIL IX, 338)’, MEFRA
102 (1990) 603-09, M. Kleijwegt, Ancient Youth (Amsterdam 1991) 279-81, Dal Cason Patriarca,
‘Considerazioni demografiche’ (above, n.46) 245-64. Compare Mouritsen, ‘The Album of Canusium’
(above, n.50) 231 n.7.
56 It remains only an assumption a) that a coloniu of second-century foundation would have two rather
than, say, four municipal quaestors per annum and b) that this office was a compulsory first step before
the aedileship, rather than the two offices being parallel alternatives: Langhammer, Recht. und soz.
Stellung (above, n.20) 161 n. 813, F. De Martino, Storiu dellu costituzione romunu IV.2 (Naples 1975,
2nd edn) 719 with 11.85, Jacques, Privilbge de liberte‘ (above, n.20) 466-68, M. Silvestrini, ‘Aspetti della
municipalith di Canusium: L‘albo dei decurioni’, MEFRA 102 (1990) 595-602, at 96, Mouritsen, ‘The
Album of Canusium’ (above, n.50) 241-42.
57 Garnsey, ‘Decline of the urban aristocracy’ (above n.lO) 242, Jongman, Pompeii (above, n.47) 320,
Scheidel, ‘Emperors, aristocrats and the grim reaper’, (above, n.43) 264-65. A shortfall can certainly
be discerned amongst higher levels; for the fact that three of the duovirulicii held that magistracy twice
suggests that approximately once every thirteen years the group of ex-aediles could not provide two
suitably qualified candidates for the duumvirate.
58 H. Mouritsen, ‘Mobility and Social Change in Italian Towns during the Principate’, in Roman
urbanism: beyond the consumer city, ed. H. M. Parkins (London 1997) 59-82, at 78 and ‘The Album
of Canusium’ (above, n.50) 247.
59 Mouritsen, ‘The Album of Canusium’ (above, n.50) 247: ‘they appear as a fairly uniform, socially
inferior group, with limited prospects of advancing within the ranks of the council’; similarly
Silvestrini,Itinerurio epigrufico (above, n.8) 119. Compare Jacques, Privilkge de liberte‘ (above, n.20)
480-84.
comprise two distinct groups: firstly, those local citizens (plebeii) of the appropriate legal
status, age, fortune and morals who had never in their youth sought designation to curial
membership as pruetextuti, such as those who had in the meantime improved their lot through
service in the military;“ and, secondly, any pruetextuti who had reached maturity since the
last census but had failed to gain entry through office-holding.6’ Such a scenario, I believe,
provides the context for the passage from [Ps.-] Paul’s Senfenfz’ue.62For it has been regularly
observed that, taking the wording of the heading of the album at face value, the quinquennules
of Canusium certainly considered the pruetextuti to be included under the rubric ‘ d e c u r i o n ~ ’ . ~ ~
Indeed a response of the Severan jurist Papinian seems directed at averting the danger that the
looser usage of the term decurio might be misconstrued to imply the right to full membership
of the council for such under-age individuals.@ In the light of this usage, the pseudonymous
jurist’s assertion that only existing decurions had the right to hold office need not be
interpreted to imply that pruetextuti had to be adlected before they could hold office. Rather,
I suggest, [Ps.-] Paul was more concerned to preserve the social prestige of the pruetextuti,
consequently arranging that plebeii should not be advantaged in comparison with pruetextuti
by being elected directly to magisterial office from outside the ordo. Adult plebeii had first
to be enrolled as ordinary members ( p e d ~ n i-) an
~ ~opportunity that arose only once in any
6o As part of their general census of the community, the quinquennules would have information as to
individuals’ fortunes at their fingertips when conducting the revision of the curial roll. Age-range: Call.
Cognit. 1 (Dig. 50.2.11) restates the principle that those under twenty-five should not be made decurions
and suggests that people should not be created decurions for the first time over the age of fifty-five.
6 1 Such persons were certainly being conscripted by some Bithynian cities: PIin. Ep.Tru. 10.79.3,
though Trajan’s reply (10.80) rules against the practice. Moreover, certain sub-groups of pruetextuti
might have particular difficulty in securing election; eg., young men of illegitimate birth suffered
discrimination in competition for office, even when they were of sufficient means and sober character:
Ulp. de 08procos. 3 (n.73 below).
62 Thus even if not Severan in date, there is no reason to suppose that this passage from the Seatentiue
represents a situation which only developed considerably later; compare H. Hortskotte ‘Magistratur und
Dekurionat im Lichte des Albums von Canusium’, ZPE 57 (1984) 211-24, at 217, who favours a
Constantinian date.
63 Damadenus, Aes Redivivum (above, n.4) cap. xxx, 105, Hortskotte, ‘Magistraturund Dekurionat’,
(above, n.62) 219-20, Mouritsen, ‘The Album of Canusium’ (above, n.50) 239; the latter identifying
a number of epigraphically attested under-age decuriones as members of this category.
64 Papin. Resp. 1 (Dig. 50.2.6.1): ‘minores viginti quinque annorum decuriones facti sportulas
decurionum accipiunt: sed interim suffragium inter ceteros ferre non possunt’ (Those made decurions
under the age of twenty-four are to receive sportulue: but at the same time they cannot exercise a vote
along with the others).
65 If this interpretation is correct, it perhaps implies a development in practice against the principle laid
down by Trajan in Plin. Ep.Tru. 10.80: no-one under the age of thirty who has not held office can be
adlected to the council of any place (Ceterum non capto magistratu eos, qui minores triginta annorum
sint, quia magistratum capere possint, in curiam etiam loci cuiusque non existimo legi posse). However,
firstly, half a century separates this from Canusium’s reconstitution as a coloniu and, secondly, the
contrast may be illusory, since Trajan was responding to the specific circumstances of Bithynia, in
which a paradox had arisen between the original provinicial law (the lex Pompeiu), stipulating an age-
threshold of thirty years (ie. age 29) for council membership, and an edict of Augustus that permitted
the tenure of magistracies after only twenty-two years (ie. age 21). Thus Trajan’s formulation does not
five-year period - and then wait until the next round of magisterial elections to become
candidates for office. No doubt those who had been less ambitious or less able financially to
pursue political office in the past may now have been content to remain peduni forever. As
with senior adlectees to the Roman senate, hopes of office-holding may have been placed in
the next Despite the limitations of method, separate demographic analyses
concur in attributing a minimum thirty-year period of membership to the most senior duoviri
and quinquenn~les.~~ Accordingly, we can imagine that the more senior peduni on the album
may be in their late sixties and their council membership may date back several decades. On
the other hand, for the five years following AD 223 the more ambitious peduni will have been
competing as candidates for magistracy alongside members of the current pruetextuti as they
reached the appropriate age. If there were competition between members of both these groups
to secure election to a magistracy, no doubt those with family links to existing members of the
magisterial class, be they pruetextuti or peduni, will have had an advantage?’ It is, moreover,
perfectly possible that a higher age-threshold normally operated for enrolment in the council
as apedanus, as opposed to entry via election to a magistracy; such a regulation would further
enhance the electoral eligibility of the pruetextuti, as Trajan suggested to Pliny should happen
in Bithynia.6’ The diversity of the peduni would be further exaggerated since the same
category would be the destination in the event of the adlection of privileged youngsters to full-
membership of the ordo before their time.
The advantage of this analysis of the relationship of the peduni and pruetextuti to the ordo
as a whole is that it accords equally well with those studies that stressed supposed family links
(both paternal and fraternal) between the magisterial class, the majority of the pruetextuti and
a section of the peduni, as with those studies that have emphasized the higher proportion of
peduni who lacked such links.70For it is a mistake to consider the status of pedunus as simply
rule out the direct adlection of ordinary members per se; it simply forbids it before the traditional
magisterial threshold of twenty-nine. The concession of the lower limit of twenty-one is reserved as a
privilege for those who actually take up an office.
Eg. P. Publicius Maximus (col. IV, 1. 15), the thirty-second and last pedunus (and hence most junior
conscript to the ordo), whose son, P. Publicius Maximus iunior (col IV, 1. 24), was, in contrast, in a
comparatively favourable position as eighth praetextutus: Jacques, Privilege de liberte‘ (above, n.20)
482.
67 Silvestrini, ERC I (above, n.1) 49, 64 n.17, assuming that there were two aediles per annum, and
treating all office-holders senior to that category as ex-aediles, calculated that the album must represent
at least twenty-nine years’ worth of magistrates. Compare Dal Cason Patriarca, ‘Considerazioni
demografiche’ (above, n.46) 249, who estimates a minimum age for her most elderly decurion,
A. Caesellius Proculus, first duumviralicius (col. 11, 1. 15), at 67.
68 A prejudice approved by Plin. Ep.Tra. 10.79.3, concerning the current tendency of censors of
Bithynian cities to adlect the sons of local worthies before they had performed any magistracy: ‘...
because it is so much more desirable to admit into the council the sons of noble men rather than from
the common people’ (... quia sit aliquanto melius honestorum hominum liberos quam a plebe in curiam
admitti), although he has doubts about the technical legality of the practice.
69 Plin. Ep.Tru.10.80: above, 11.65.
70 Garnsey, ‘Decline of the urban aristocracy’ (above, n.lO) 245-49, Jacques, Privilege de liberte‘
(above, n.20) 478-82,486-90, Jongman, Pompeii (above, n.47), 326-28, Chelotti, ‘Mobilith sociale’
(above, n.55) 603-09, Kleijwegt, Ancient Youth (above, n.55) 279-81, Dal Cason Patriarca,
either a mandatory step before magistracy or a category of ‘no-hopers’ that was entirely by-
passed by the high-flying sons of the established civic tlite. Many, even most, peduni may
have never risen above that status but, nevertheless, adlection to their number will have been
the route of access into the council for some individuals even from established curial
farnilie~.~‘Indeed, the combination of an enlarged ordo with a static number of entry-level
magistracies would produce a situation in which increased competition for the most junior
magistracies (especially since election conferred a more prestigious rank)72existed alongside
occasional shortfalls in candidates for the senior magistracies and the inability of the ordo to
maintain itself at maximum permitted strength without resort to a considerable amount of
adle~tion.~’ It is notable that in 223 there survived three individuals who had held the
duumvirate twice but nobody who had been required to iterate the aedileship or quaestorship.
Given that the difference in their magisterial structures will have engendered different
specific dynamics, the principles at work in the ordo of Canusium are a microcosm of the
Roman senate of the imperial, as opposed to the republican, period; this is to be expected
from a town granted its most recent charter under Antoninus Pius. A further corollary of this
understanding of the nature of the pedani and praetextuti concerns the question of the period
of validity of the album. Despite being quickly out-dated as a guide to the distribution of
magisterial office, the album ought to have provided the names of all those who would form
the pool of candidates for magisterial office over the next five years.74Nobody outside those
named here is likely to have entered the decurionate within the period 223-28, either via
election to an office or simply by adlection as a pedunus. Thus, it is clear that the album of
AD 223 remained valid as a catalogue of the decurions, which might be used, for instance, as
‘Considerazioni demografiche’ (above, n.46) 25 1-62,Mouritsen, ‘Mobility and Social Change’ (above,
11.58) 78. Furthermore, the likely concentration of any decurions of illegitimate birth in the category of
peduni, resulting from the discrimination endorsed by Marcus and Verus (below, n.73), contributes to
explaining the high proportion of pedurzi lacking (acknowledged) familial links to the magisterial elite.
71 Ti. Claudius Verus (col. IV, 1. 13), third most junior pedunus, may have been recently conscribed
from thepruetextuti since he is plausibly a son of Ti. Claudius Candidus (col. 111, I. 6), the fifth most
senior uedilicius (and thus probably quite mature) and an elder brother of Ti. Claudius Fortunatus (col.
IV, 1. 41), the most junior pruetextutus.
72 According to Ulp. Dig. 50.3.1.1 (quoted above) and the ranking of the album, even the most junior
magistrate would have the right to speak before even the most senior pedurzus. Moreover, before AD
212, it was presumably the case in provincial municipiu with the Latin right that entry to the ordo by
adlection did not confer the same right to Roman citizenship that tenure of a magistracy did.
73 A shortfall is envisaged by the ruling of M. Aurelius and L. Verus, quoted by Ulp. de 08procos. 3
(Dig. 50.2.3.2) that ‘There is no doubt that illegitimate men can be adlected into the ordo, but if one
has as a competitor someone legitimately begotten, then the deified brothers have replied to Lollianus
Avitus, the governor of Bithynia, that he is to be preferred. “But,in the absence of such individuals, also
illegitimate men of honorable means and lifestyle shall be accepted into the decurionate; because this
will not be thus a disgrace to the ordo, since it is in the interest of the ordo that it should always be
full.”’ (Spurios posse in ordinem allegi nulla dubitatio est: sed si habeat competitorem legitime
quaesitum, praeferri eum (oportet}, divi fratres Lolliano Avito Bithyniae praesidi rescripserunt.
Cessantibus vero his etiam spurii ad decurionatum et re et vita honesta recipiantur; quod utique non
sordi erit ordini, cum ex utilitate eius ut semper ordinem plenum habere.).
74 Suggested in relation to thepruetextuti alone: Jarrett, ‘Decurionsand Priests’ (above, n.3) 515.
a guide to the selection of local jurymen (i~dices),~’until the time of the next quinquennial
census. This still does not help to explain why this album should have remained on public
display until at least AD 235, by which time two more censuses will have elapsed.
3 Patroni
Perhaps, instead, the key to the explanation of the particular preservation of the album of AD
223 lies amongst the other major component of the album, comprising its two leading
categories, the thirty-one ‘patroni c(1arissimi) v(iri)’ and eight ‘patroni e(quites) R(omani)’.
These have certainly been considered an extraordinary Although it is not clear from
Ulpian’s advice on drawing up an album (quoted above) that the listing of the non-resident
patroni of the community was standard practice, this would seem to be confirmed by the fact
that the Thamugadi album is similarly headed by senatorial patr~ni.’~ From the point of view
of the local community, the position of pafronus was certainly considered the prime honor
of the career ladder (even if it did not merit notice by its holders beyond the ~ommunity)~’ and
thus naturally heads the list of office^.^'
The practical functionality of this part of the album is less immediately apparent, which
suggests that its value was primarily symbolic; that is, it emphasised the number of links the
community had to illustrious members of the wider imperial Blite. That this is indeed how the
presence of the patroni on the album of decurions was viewed by contemporaries may be
confirmed by the second and final extract from the Digesf title de albo scribendo, which, if
not a genuine work of Ulpian, seems to have been written soon after AD 225:”
75 Lex Irnitana, title 86 (Tab. IX, col. B, 11 42-49).

76 L. Harmand, Un aspect social et politique du monde romain, le patronage sur les collectivit6s
publiques des origines au Bas-Empire (Paris 1957) 391 described the composition of the list of patrons
as ‘habile et eclectique’. R. Duthoy, ‘Quelques observations concernant la mention d’un patronat
municipal dans les inscriptions’, AC 50 (1981) 295-305, at 305; Silvestrini in ERC I (above, n.1) 49.
Indeed, to avoid the possibility of the atypicality of the list ofpatronion the album affecting his results,
Duthoy excluded them from his catalogue of patroni in ‘Le profil social des patrons municipaux en
Italie sous le Haut-Empire’, AncSoc 15-17 (1984-86) 121-54, at 136-54, which formed the basis for his
other analyses.
Patroni also regularly head the alba of corporations: CIL XIV 246-47, 250 = ILS 6174, CIL XIV
252,5357, and AE (1977) 265b; closest parallels are CIL XIV 251 (= ILS 6175) and 5356, headed by
patr(oni)senat(ores) and equit(es)Rom(ani).
78 Duthoy, ‘Quelques observations’ (above, n.76) 295-305.
79 Nummia Varia’s patronatus was described by the Peltuini as ‘honor qui est aput nos potissimus’
(CIL IX 3429 = I L S 61lo), a rank, which, if attained by local decurions, was deemed to confer special
judicial privileges by Valens and Valentinian in reply to the Volsinienses (CTh 12.1.61 of 28 Oct. 364).
A. M. Honor6, Ulpian (Oxford 1982) 120-28, D. Liebs, ‘Pseudo-Ulpianus 11’ in Handbuch der
lateinischen Literatur (above, n.53) 68, 0 507.4.
IDEM LIBRO SECUNDO OPINIONUM. Idem [Ps.-Ulpian], Opiniones, book 2.

In albo decurionum in municipio On the album of municipal decurions
nomina ante scribi oportet eorum, the names of those who have derived
qui dignitates principis iudicio positions by the emperor’s discretion
consecuti sunt, postea eorum qui should be entered first, and afterwards
tantum municipalibus honoribus the names of those who have fulfilled
functi sunt. only municipal offices.
(Dig. 50.3.2)
This may be construed as governing the placement of the patroni since, in contrast with the
status of municipal decurion, membership of both the ordo senatorius and equestris, as well
as tenure of magistracies and offices therein, might legitimately be interpreted as dignitates
derived ‘principis iudicio’, because all were subject to direct imperial control to a greater or
lesser extent. Indeed those listed under the headings ‘patroni cc. vv.’ and ‘patroni eeqq. RR.’
comprise specifically those patroni of Canusium who also possess these ranks conferred by
the Roman state. Thus, on a stricter reading of these headings, it is just possible that
equestrians of non-patronal rank may be concealed in the ranks of ex-magistrates. Conversely,
it is probable that patroni of purely municipal rank may lurk unmarked amongst the ordinary
decurions, where they are duly marked out on the album of Thamugadi.” Thus, although the
total of thirty-nine has been considered high,” it may, in fact, under-represent the number of
patroni attached to Canusium in AD 223. Whether or not there are hidden decurional patroni
at Canusium, the total of thirty-one senatorial patroni alone dwarfs the only other known
totals: of six patroni attested for Saguntum in Spainx3and the twelve recorded for Thamugadi
in AD 36213, where, in contrast to Canusium, only five were senators.
Besides the apparently large number of Canusium’s patroni, the list has been thought to
comprise an abnormally high proportion of leading contemporary political figures.84There
was already an established line in modern scholarship willing to give credence to the dubious
testimony of Herodian that the government of the teenage emperor Severus Alexander and his
mother Mamaea Augusta was guided by sixteen men selected from the senate,” when Auguste
81 Chastagnol, Albwn municipal (above, n.3) 24. Indeed, four (ie. fifty percent) of Canusium’s eques-
trianpatroni had held magisterial office in the coloniu: T. Ligerius Postuminus (col. I, line 35, col. 11,
1. 2), T. Flavius Crocalianus (col. I, 1. 37, col. III,1. 2), ‘IT. Aelii Rufus and Flavianus (col. I, 11. 39-40,
col. II,1. 5-6); and Galbius Soterianus (col. I, 1.38, col. II,l. 10);see further section 6. Elsewhere in Italy
a high number of patroni were of purely local significance: R. Duthoy, ‘ScCnarios de co-optation des
patrons municipaux en Italie’, Epigruphica 46 (1984) 23-48, at 46-48. Given the putrocinium of a later
L. Annius Rufus (CIL IX 339-40 = ERC I, Nos 37-38), the LL. Annii Secundus (col. 11, 1. 8), Pius (col.
II,L 34) and Rufus (col. IV, 1. 25) are likely candidates for ‘hidden’patroni.
** F. Grelle, ‘La citth tardoantica’ in Principi, imperutori, vescovi (above, n.1) 821.
83 CIL I1 3867,ll. 2-3, dedicated by Saguntum to its ‘patronis I VI’.
84 Damadenus, Aes Redivivum (above, n.4) cap. xxi, 65, referring specifically to App. Claudius Iulianus
(cos. I1 224), Betitius (sic = Bruttius) Praesens (cos. 217), and L. Didius Marinus (a much-employed
procurator; see further section 5 below).
85 Hdn. 6.12,7.1.3, Zonar. 12.15.1, typically inflated by the SHA V.Alex. 16.1 into twenty jurists and
fifty other ‘learned, wise and eloquent men’. The authority of Herodian alone was not weighty but the
BENET SALWAY: PREFECTS, PATRONI, AND DECURIONS I35
Jardt proposed in 1925 that the list of senatorial patroni on the album reflected this supposed
‘conseil d e rCgence’.86 More recently Dick Whittaker even went as far as describing ‘the
famous album of the patrons of Canusium’ (sic) as ‘the list of senators prominent immediately
after the accession of A[lexander]’, which, he claimed, ‘provides a rough guide to the group
who ... supported Magnus’ in AD 235.” A glance at the individual heading the patroni cc. vv.,
App. Claudius Iulianus, might indeed encourage such views. Whether or not a genuine
descendant of the republican Appii Claudii, Iulianus had been a (suffect) consul c. AD 200
and proconsul of Africa under Caracalla but his closeness to, and the especial favour in which
he was held by, the regime of Alexander and Mamaea is certified by the fact that he was to
take up the consular fasces for the second time in the coming January (AD 224).” Moreover,
Iulianus served as praefectus urbi at some point under Alexander, quite probably already at
the time of the album’s carving.” Much discussion has also been excited by the fact that the
third and fifth patroni would appear to be homonymous with two individuals, Aedinius
Iulianus and Domitius Honoratus, both attested by other evidence as prefects of Egypt and
then praetorian prefects at roughly the same period as the album.g0 Such officials were
indubitably close to the centre of imperial power.” However, since the praetorian prefecture
was traditionally filled by men of equestrian status bearing the epithet eminentissirnus:* the
Zonaras passage was credited to the contemporary Cassius Dio in U. P. Boissevain’s edition vol. 111
(Berlin 1901) 477 fr.2; hence cited by W. Thiele, De Severo Alexandro imperatore (Berlin 1909) 73-74
to contrast Alexander’s reign with the preceding Severan age and the rest of the third century, for which
equestrian dominance of the imperial consilium was considered the norm: Mommsen, Rom. Staatsrech?
111.1 (above, n.49) 556. J. A. Crook, Consilium principis: imperial councils and counsellors from
Augustus to Diocletian (Cambridge 1955) 86-91 considers the report of the council genuine. However,
the mention of Mamaea in Zonaras’ version suggests that it is derivative of Herodian, whom he exploits
elsewhere for the reign of Alexander, rather than of Dio, since the empress is never named in what we
know of Dio’s text from Xiphilinus. The council should be considered as an ideologically-motivated
fiction invented by Herodian in order to portray Alexander’s reign as an ideal of aristocratia in contrast
with the ‘tyrannies’ before and after: C. R. Whittaker’s introduction to the Loeb Herodian I
(Cambridge, Mass. 1969) Ixxv.
86 A. JardC, Etudes critiques sur la vie et le rdgne de Sivdre Alexandre (Paris 1925) 26, 123-25.
87 C. R. Whittaker (ed.), Herodian I1 (Cambridge, Mass. 1970) 152-53; compare vol. I (above, n.85),
lxxvi.
88 PIR2C 901, G. Barbieri, L’albo senatorio da Settimio Severo a Carino (Rome 1952) 41-42,475-76,
no. 158.
89 Prefecture of the city: Paul. Resp. 14 (Dig. 31.87.3), accepting Mommsen’s tentative emendation
‘Claudi{an}o Iuliano’. That iterated consulships were a frequent accompaniment to the urban prefecture
suggests Iulianus’ current tenure of that post in AD 223.
90 L. L. Howe, The pretorian prefect from Commodus to Diocletian (A.D. 180-305)(Chicago 1942)
App. I1 C, 100-05; see below section 5.
91 This had been the case since the early days of the principate. On the very first imperial accession (that
of Tiberius in AD 14), the praetorian prefect and praefectus annonae were the first, after the current
consuls but before the rest of the ‘senatus militesque et populus’, to swear publicly an oath of
allegiance: Tac. Ann. 1.7.2.
92 Exclusivity of erninentissimus to the highest grades of equestrian official, usually only the praetorian
prefects: Howe, Pretorian prefect (above, n.90) 19 n.26, H.-G. Pflaum, Carridres procuratoriennes
presence of Iulianus and Honoratus amongst the senatorial patroni cc. vv. has provoked a
lengthy debate, not least because of a passage of the tendentious Historia Augusta that seems
to claim that Alexander made his prefects full members of the h en ate.'^ Then in 1947, as part
of a discussion of the career of Aedinius Iulianus, Hans-Georg Pflaum developed the bold
thesis that not only was Claudius Iulianus currently praefectus urbi but also, on the basis of
their rankings relative to each other, the next four patroni comprise two pairs of praetorian
prefects: one pair the incumbents, the other pair those recently retired, thus:y4
APP. CLAVDIVS IVLIANVS praefectus urbi, cos. I1 desig.

T. LORENIVS CELSVS praefectus praetorio
M. AEDINIVS IVLIANVS praefectus praetorio
L. DIDIVS MARINVS ex-praefectus praetorio
L. DOMITIVS HONORATVS ex-praefectus praetorio
This group, he proposed, represented some of the key players in Alexander’s government;
men who had been the leaders of the previous year’s coup - which Pflaum termed a revolution
sknatoriale - against his cousin Antoninus (Elagabalus). The record of their status as patroni
thus reflects the particular political astuteness of the Canusini, who, he argues, were pursuing
a political agenda in erecting the album, emphasising their allegiance to the powerful men of
the new regime.” In slight contrast, of the succeeding twenty-six clarissimate patroni, from
M. Antonius Balbus to M. Valerius Turbo iun(ior), commentators agree that eleven can be
identified with otherwise known senators of as yet unspectacular eminence, though two of
them were certainly already consular in 223.y6
e‘questres sous le Huut-Empire romain 3 vols (Paris 1960-61) I1 625-27, A. Chastagnol, ‘L’Histoire
Auguste et le rang des prCfets du prktoire’, Recherches sur Z’Histoire Auguste (Bonn 1970) 41.
93 SHA V.Alex. 21.3-5: ‘Praefectis praetorii suis senatoriam addidit dignitatem, ut viri clarissimi et
essent et dicerentur; quod antea vel raro fuerat vel omnino nondum fuerat, eo usque ut, si quis
imperatorum successorem praefecto praetorii dare vellet, laticlaviam eidern per libertum surnmitteret,
ut in multorum vita Marius Maximus dixit. Alexander autem idcirco senatores esse voluit praefectos
praetorii, ne quis non senator de Romano senatore iudicaret.’ (He gave his praetorian prefects senatorial
rank, so that they might both be and be declared viri clurissimi; formerly this had been done either
rarely or not at all, to the extent that, if some emperor wished to appoint a successor to the praetorian
prefect, he would send the funica laticlavia secretly to him through a freedman, as Marius Maximus
said in the biographies of many emperors. Alexander, on the other hand, wished the praetorian prefects
to be senators, lest someone not a senator pass judgement on a Roman senator).
94 H.-G. Pflaum, Le murbre de Thorigny (Paris 1948) 36-45.
95 Pflaum, Marbre de Thorigny (above, n.94) 37: ‘Les notables de Canusium ont certainernent poursuivi
un but politique en Crigeant ce monument. I1 consistait B rendre homrnage aux clarissimes et chevaliers
influents, qui daignaient les patronner, B leur faire savoir qu’ils Ctaient avec eux. Nous pouvons en con-
clure, que tous les grands noms qui figurent sur la pierre (sic)font partie du personnel dirigeant du
moment, que ce sont eux, Ies meneurs du dernier coup d’Etat.’, Curritres I1 (above, n.92) 772, ZI propos
of Aedinius Iulianus, ‘I1ne fait en revanche aucun doubte que nous soyons en prksence ... d’un partisan
de la reaction en faveur du sCnat.’; an interpretation followed by Silvestrini, ERC I1 (above, n.11) 226.
96 Details: Pflaum, Murbre de Thorigny (above, 11.93) 45-48, Silvestrini in ERC I (above, n.1) 50-52.
M. Statius Longinus (leg. Aug. pro pruefore of Moesia Inferior in 217/8), seventh on the list, is one
consular. It is unnecessary to presume the accidental swapping of the contiguouspruenominu in col.
I, 11. 13-14, ‘L. Bruttius Praesens I C. Bruttius Crispinus’ in order to identify the twelfth on the list with
Pflaum swept aside the apparent obstacles to his identifications of the praetorian prefects
by arguing that these men were clarissimi viri by virtue of the grant of consular ornamenta
(ie. the insignia of the office without the status), while simultaneously, and somewhat
contradictorily, appealing as further support for his hypothesis to Alexander’s supposed
promotion of his prefects to the senate, reported by the Historia A ~ g u s t a . ~A’ subsidiary
corollary of Pflaum’s identifications was that he supposed that these pairs of prefects served
successively under the famous jurist Domitius Ulpianus in his capacity as ‘superprefet’?* For
it is known that Ulpian was promoted at some point before the beginning of December 222
from the prefecture of the annona to that of the praetorium (over the heads of the then
incumbents, Iulius Flavianus and Geminius Chrestus, whose executions he soon engineered)
and, as Cassius Dio reports, that he still occupied that office at the time of his murder at the
hands of his own troops, an event which was then generally placed c. AD 228.99
Pflaum’s reconstruction has been extremely influential and received yet further impetus
from the publication in 1966 ofP.Oxy. 2565, which necessitated some reconsideration of the
chronology of Ulpian’s career. For this papyrus named M. Aurelius Epagathus, the chief
instigator of Ulpian’s murder, as Prefect of Egypt in May/June of AD 224, to which position
he is known to have been appointed after Ulpian’s demise, before being deported to Crete and
executed.”’ Given this slight adjustment, and even though some have rejected the
characterization of Alexander’s regime as ‘pro-senatorial’ and others have preferred to swap
the order of the pairs of praetorian prefects, the veracity of Pflaum’s identifications has
become widely accepted, being followed by many scholars since, including Ronald Syme,
AndrB Chastagnol and Leiva Petersen (by whom it was enshrined in the second edition of the
C. Bruttius Praesens (cos. ord. 217) as the other certain consular: compare JardC, Sivkre Alexandre
(above, n.86) 124 n.7; Silvestrini in ERC I (above, n.1) 48,51. For, while a stone (CZL XI 2702 = ZLS
7217) records the consul posterior of AD 224 as L. Bruttius Crispinus, two diplomas now give the date
as ‘Ap. Claudio Iuliano 11, C. Bruttio Crispino cos.’ (AE (1939) 124 = CZL XVI Suppl. 189, AE
(1969/70) 571). The diversity of this testimony may simply reflect variant abbreviations of extended
polyonymous forms for both individuals that included both Lucius and Guius: Barbieri, Albo senatorio
(above, n.88) 198, no. 969.
97 Pflaum, Marbre de Thorigny (above, 11.94) 38-39; SHA V.Alex. 21.3-5 (above, n.93).
98 Pflaum, Marbre de Thorigny (above, 11.94) 41-44.
99 Ulpian is prae$ unrconae in CJ 8.37.4 (31 March 222) but already prueJ:praetorio in CJ 4.65.4 (1
December 222). Dio’s full text is missing but his account of Ulpian’s promotion over Flavianus and
Chrestus and his subsequent downfall can be reconstructed from Zos. 1.11.2-3, Zonar. 12.15.2-6.
(where both follow Dio), and Xiphilinus’ epitome, 80.2.2-4.
loo J. W. Barns et al., eds, P.0xy. XXXI (London 1966) no. 2565,ll. 1-6: ‘[Iuli]ano et Crispino cos.
I[an]n[o 1111 Imp. Caesaris Marci Aureli I[Seve]ri Alexandri pii felicis Aug. I[men]se Pauni die [ . .
IAlex]a[nd]r. ad Aeg. I[apud] M. Aurelium Epagathum pref. Aeg.’; D.C.CXiph.1 80.2.4. Revision of the
chronology: J. R. Rea in P.0xy. XXXI 102, F. Grosso, ‘I1papiro Oxy. 2565 e gli avvenimenti del222-
224, RAL 23 (1968) 205-20, J. M. Modrzejewski, ‘Les PrCfets d’Egypteau debut de le rkgne de S&&e
Alexandre’, in Antidoron Martino David oblatum: Miscellanea papyrologica, eds E. Boswinkel,
B. A. vanGroningen,P. W. Pestman (kiden 1968) 59-69, R. Syme, Emperors and biography: studies
in the Historia Augusta (Oxford 1971) 153.
Prosopographia Imperii Rumani).’” Indeed, Joseph M61Bze-Modrzejewski and Tadeusz

Zawadzki subsequently argued that, had Ulpian been still living at the time of the album’s
compilation, the Canusini would not have failed to co-opt the most powerful man at court as
their patronus; a line of reasoning endorsed by Syme.’” This gave them a terminus ante quem
for Ulpian’s demise of 3 1 December 223, the end of the consular year by which the album is
dated, or even c. October 223, if the Canusini placed Claudius Iulianus at the head of the
register of patruni by virtue of his designation as cos. II.’03In fact, considering Didius
Marinus and Domitius Honoratus to have served under Ulpian but Lorenius Celsus and
Aedinius Iulianus to have succeeded them after the jurist’s death, Modrzejewski and
Zawadzki placed this event sometime in the summer of 223 in order to account for the high
ranking of these four but Ulpian’s simultaneous absence from the album.’” Syme, quite
reasonably preferring to ditch Pflaum’s ‘superpr6fet’ theory altogether, was prepared to curtail
Ulpian’s tenure of the prefecture even further and countenance a subsequent rapid turnover
in prefects before the end of 223.’OS
While these discussions have focused on the significance of the appearance of these
individuals on the album for contemporary politics, Louis Harmand, in his study of civic
patronage, considered the significance of the praetorian prefects as patruni for the Canusini
to lie in fie access they had to the highest levels of decision-making.Io6More recently John
Nicols has developed the argument in a different direction. Still relying on Pflaum’s
identifications, he has argued that both the prefect of the city and the praetorian prefects had
R. Syme, ‘Threejurists’, in Bonner Historia-Augusta-Colloquium1968/9,ed. J. Straub (Bonn 1970)

309-23, at 318, Emperors and Biography (above, n.100), 151-53, and ‘Fiction about Roman jurists’,
ZRG 97 (1980) 78-104, at 101; Chastagnol, Recherches sur L’HA (above, n.92) 48; L. Petersen, PZR’
V. 1 92, L 343, on Lorenius Celsus. Note also: Harmand, Patronage sur les collectivitks publiques
(above, n.76) 387, 391; J. M. Modrzejewski and T. Zawadzki, ‘La date de la mort d’Ulpien et la
prkfecture du prCtoire au debut du rbgne d’Alexandre SCvbre’, RD 45 (1967) 592-99; Whittaker,
Herodiun I (above, n.85) Ixxvi; T. D. Barnes, ‘Who were the nobility of the Roman Empire?’, Phoenix
28 (1974) 444-49, at 448-49; J.-P. Coriat, ‘Les hommes nouveaux a 1’Cpoque des Skvkres’, RD 56
(1978) 4-27, at 14; Honork, Ulpian (above, n.80) 39-40,45-46; Silvestrini in ERC I (above, n.1) 50,
I1 (above, n.11) 226; J. Nicols, ‘Prefects,patronage and the administration ofjustice’, ZPE 72 (1988)
201-17, at 203-05; P. M. M. Leunissen, Konsuln und Konsulare in derZeit von Commodus bis Severus
Alexander (180-235n.Chr.): prosopographische Untersuchungenzur senatorischen Elite im romischen
Kaiserreich (Amsterdam 1989) 100 n.111; Grelle, ‘La citth tardoantica’ (above, n.82) 821.
lo’ Modrzejewski and Zawadzki, ‘La date de la mort d’Ulpien’ (above, n.lO1) 600; Syme, ‘Three
jurists’, (above, n.lO1) 318: ‘by omitting Ulpian, the town councillors of Canusium were guilty of a
strange inadvertence - if Ulpian was still alive.’, Syme, Emperors and biography (above, n.lOO) 153,
and ‘Fiction about Roman jurists’ (above, n.lO1) 90-91,96; P. Cosme, L’ktat romain entre e‘clutement
et confinuitk (Paris 1998) 47-49.
lo3 Modrzejewski and Zawadzki, ‘La date de la mort d’Ulpien’, (above, n.lO1) 600-01; compare Syme,
‘Three jurists’, (above, n.lO1) 318. Designation of ordinary consuls supposedly took place between
October and December: Mommsen, Rom. Staatsreche I (above, 11.49) 588-90.
Modrzejewski and Zawadzki, ‘La date de la mort d’ulpien’, (above, n.lO1) 608.
Syme, Emperors and biography (above, n.lOO) 156-57 with n.4.
‘06 Harmand, Patronage sur Les collectivitks publiques (above, n.76) 391-94.
been made patroni by Canusium for their powers of legal and military jurisdiction, even going
so far as to provide a scenario for their co-optation.'"'
Calling to mind the famous episode of Bulla Felix, a 'Robin Hood' of the Severan period,'"'
and, most particularly, a dedication by the Canusini to another patronus, M. Antonius
Vitellianus, a local equestrian official of Canusine origin, commemorating his restoration of
p i e s to the region,'@Nicols suggested that periodically brigandage caused disruption to the
transhumant shepherding upon which the prosperity of Canusium depended. He proposed,
therefore, that in 223 Canusium had been suffering in this way and that the album reflects the
co-optation of the urban and praetorian prefects as patroni specifically in order to harness the
collective power of their jurisdiction over Italy (that of the urban prefect up to the hundredth
mile from Rome, that of the praetorian prefects beyond) to suppress the brigandage. For this
division of jurisdictional competence, which cut across the calles used in transhumance from
the Apennine highlands to the plains of Apulia, was clearly operative by this time, at least in
relation to offences under the lex Fabiu (forbidding suppression of the liberty of Roman
citizens and the stealing of slaves)."' Certainly it had been the famous jurist Papinian, as
praetorian prefect, that had eventually tried Bulla Felix."' Moreover, prior to that, the
praetorian prefects are known to have been compelled to issue a written warning on a law and
order matter relating to transhumant shepherding in this region: that issued under M. Aurelius
to the magistrates of Saepinum and Bovianum in Samnium, advising them against any further
obstruction of the passage of flocks through their territory."' In the light of these parallels,
Nicols' hypothesis may seem attractive but it does still involve a not uncontroversial
interpretation of the role of the civic patronus.
In addition, despite the eagerness of scholars to build such elaborate hypotheses upon
Pflaum's identification of the praetorian prefects, as Syme noted with characteristic under-
statement, 'various problems s~bsi st'.''~ The point of detail that has given rise to most
argument is how precisely to interpret the senatorial epithet (clurissimus) accorded the prefects
'07 Nicols, 'Prefects, patronage', (above, n.lO1) 201-17, especially 215-16.

An audacious two-year campaign of banditry: D.CJXiph.1 70.10.
'09CIL IX 334 = ILS 2768 = ERC No 27: 'M. Antonio Vitelliano v(iro) e(gregio) patr(ono) col(oniae)
Canus(inorum) I p(rae)p(osito)tractus Apuliae Calabriae Lucaniae Bruttior(um) ob I insignem eius erga
patriam ac cives adfectionem et singularem I industriam ad quietem regionis servandam postulatu populi
d(ecreto) I d(ecurionum) p(ublice).' Vitellianus' office can now be placed c. AD 250, since he is attested
as epistrategos of the Heptanomia in Egypt in 253156 by P.0xy. 3109.
'lo The respective jurisdictional spheres of the prefects of the city and praetorium over Italy are distin-
guished in Ulp. de ofi procos. 9 (Collatio legum Mosaicarum et Romanarum 14.3.2): 'Sed enim iam
.eo perventum est constitutionibus, ut Romae quidem praefectus urbis solus super ea re cognoscat, si
intra miliarium centesimum sit iniuria commissa: enimvero si ultra centesimum, praefectorum praetorio
erit cognitio.' Judicial role of the praetorian prefect: Howe, Pretorian prefect (above, n.90) 32-37.
"' D.CJXiph.1 77 r761.10.7.
'12 CIL IX 2438, the surviving copy to Saepinum comprising a whole dossier of official correspondence
on the issue culminating in the letter of the prefects Bassaeus Rufus and Macrinius Vindex c. AD
1691172: M. Corbier, 'Fiscus et patrimonium: the Saepinum inscription and transhumance in the
Abruzzi', JRS 73 (1983) 126-31.
Syme, 'Three jurists', (above, n.lO1) 318 n.4, Emperors and biography (above, n.100) 151-53.
on the album and the precedence given to these four imperial officials over ex-consuls of
senatorial birth. Whether one supposes the award of consular ornamenta, their adlection inter
consulares, or the tenure of suffect consulships, no satisfactory explanation has yet been pro-
posed as to how these praetorian prefects come to occupy positions two to five in the register
of senatorial patroni before all the more conventional senators, including one certain and six
presumed ex-consuls. After all, since the praetorian prefecture was tradition-ally the highest
post in the socially inferior equestrian cursus honorum, one might have expected to find the
holders of this post listed in the album’s second category, thepatroni equites R~mani.”~ How-
ever, more fundamentally, the theories of both Modrzejewskil Zawadzki and Nicols depend
not only upon the identification of the second to fifth clarissimate patroni as praetorian prefects
but also upon notions concerning the reasons and opportunities for the co-optation of patroni
and the nature of the exercise of civic patronage that are difficult to reconcile with what can
otherwise be established on this subject. All too often, in seeking solutions to these problems
it seems that scholars have neglected the perspective of the quinquennales of Canusium.
4 Patronatus
As noted by Nicols, while the existence of patroni and their ties to specific communities are
relatively well documented, explicit information as to the function of the patronus of a civic
community is scarce.”’ Both honorific inscriptions attesting individuals as patroni of
communities and so-called tabulae patronatus, which commemorate decrees requesting an
individual to become patronus or confirming an individual’s co-optation, are quite plentiful.’I6
From these we know that it was common practice for the community to be received into the
clientela of the honorand himself, his children and descendants, or alternatively expressed as
of his domus in perpetuity,“’ and that quinquennales frequently acted as the representatives
The praetorian prefecture was given this status on its creation by Augustus. L. Seius Strabo, prefect
AD 14-16, PIR S 246), is described as ‘princepsequestris ordinis’: Vell. 2.127.3.
J. Nicols, ‘The emperor and the selection of the patronus civitatis. Two examples’, Chiron 8 (1978)
429-32, at 429, ‘Pliny and the patronage of communities’, Hermes 108 ( I 980) 365-86, at 366-77,
382-83, and ‘Prefects, patronage’, (above, n.lO1) 201-03.
‘16 Excluding the album of Canusium, seventy percent of attested patroni of the first to third centuries
AD in Italy are known from such honorific inscriptions, whereas only one, Pliny the Younger, is known
from literature (Plin. Ep. 4.1.4): Duthoy, ‘Quelquesobservations’ (above, n.76) 295. In the tables of
F. J. Navarro, ‘Titvli honorarii:vfnclos intensos entre senadores y comunidades en el Imperio Romano’,
Veleia 14 (1997) 258-93, at 292-93, the vast majority of such dedications attests patroni. Tabula
patronatus: J. Nicols, ‘Tabula patronatus: A study of the agreement between patron and client-
community’,ANRW1I.I 3 (1980) 535-61.
‘I7 Of the sample of twenty-eight tabulae in ILS 6093-61 17, the co-optation is of the honorand himself
(se),his children (liberi)and descendants (posterique eius) vel sim. in eighteen (6094-6104, 6107-9,
61 11, 61 1la-c), while 6093 is too fragmentary to be certain and 6106 and 61 10 mention the domus
instead. Note also: Paestum offered the patronatus of the colonin by a single act on 1 August 347 to
both Aquilius Nestorius and his son Aquilius Aper (AE (1990) 21 1,ll. 15-21).Patroni ‘a maioribus’,
6 ~ npoybvov,
8 vel sim.: Harmand, Patronage sur les collectivith publiques (above, 11.76)299-300,
31 1-14. An individual case-study: S. Segenni, ‘I Salii di Amiternum, patroni nel 111 e nel IV sec. d.C.’,
SCO 41 (1991) 395-401.
of the community offering patronatus.’’8Moreover, there survive titles from the Lex Coloniae
Genetivae and Lex Irnitana regulating the processes for the co-optation of patroni.“’ Thus we
know that at Urso normally individuals alone might not selectpatroni for the community; they
were to be adopted only by a vote of two-thirds of the decurions, provided that there was a
quorum of fifty.”’ However, both the individual appointed ‘curator for granting or assigning
or adjudicating lands according to the Lex Iulia, and the person who shall have deducted that
colony, their children and descendants’ were to have special rights to nominate patroni.”’ In
a later title it is stipulated that senators or their sons were only to be adopted as patroni when
they held no office, specifically when ‘in Italiam sine imperio privatus’, and only after the
favourable decision of two-thirds of the decurions.”’ Similarly at Irni no one was to co-opt a
patronus except by a decree of the majority of the decurions, provided that no less than two-
thirds of the decurions were present, though no clause that would exclude current provincial
governors from being co-opted survives.”’ Although this is all useful information, it does not
provide a definition of the essential role of the patronus. In the absence of such, divergent
schools of opinion exist as to the nature and function of civic patronage in the imperial period.
Since Roman communities used the same terminology (ie. patronus I patronatus lpatro-
cinium and cliens I clientela) to describe their relationship with the individuals they co-opted
as was used of the relationship of freed slave to ex-master, the relationships were clearly
considered in origin to be analog~us.’’~ There has been a tendency, promoted by the work of
Paul Veyne, to consider the essence of both relationships to be the general conferment of
benefaction(s), defying specific definition, by a party of higher social, economic or political
status for the reciprocation of honours, favours andlor services by a party of lower status.”*
The quinquennales acted as legati for Peltuinum to Nummia Varia in AD 242 (CIL IX 3429 = ILS
61 10) and for Genusia to Flavius Successus in AD 395 (CIL IX 259 = I L S 61 15); compare CIL X 7845
= ILS 6107, where the quinquennales of Uselis in Sardinia offer the closely-associated honour of
hospitium to M. Aristius Balbinus Atinianus in AD 158.
Lex Coloniae Genetivae, titles 97, 130 (Tab. c, col. III,11. 12-22, Tab. e, col. II,11. 39-41) and Lex
Irnitana, title 61 (Tab. VII, col. A, 11. 25-30).
I2O Len Coloniae Genetivae, title 97 [Tab. c, col. III,11. 12-20].
12’ Lex Coloniae Genetivae, title 97 [Tab. c, col. III,11 16-18]: no individual is to nominatepatroni
without the authority of the decurions, ‘praeter eum, qu<i> c(urator)a(gris) d(andis) a(tsignandis) i(udi-
candis) ex lege Iulia est, eumlque, qui eam colon(iam) deduxerit, liberos posteros<q>ue I eorum, ...’
122 Lex Coloniae Genetivae, title 130 [Tab. e, col. 11,ll. 42-46]. A similar and almost identically worded
stipulation is repeated for the adoption of a senator as hospes in title 131 [Tab. e, col. III,11. 3-71.
123 Lexlrnitana, title 61: R(ubrica). de patron0 cooptando. I Ne quis patronum public(a)e municipibus
municipi Flavi Irnitani I cooptato patrociniumve c(i)ui deferto, nisi ex maioris parltis decurionum
decreto, quod decretum factum erit, cum I duae partes non minus decurionum adfuerint et iurati I per
tab[el]lam se[n]tentiam tulerint.
lZ4 W. Neuhauser, Patronus und orator: eine Geschichte der Begrge von ihren Anfangen bis in die
augusteische Zeit (Innsbruck 1958); R. P. Saller, Personal patronage under the early Empire
(Cambridge 1982) 7-1 1.
125 P. Veyne, Le pain et le cirque. Sociologie historique d’un pluralisme politique (Paris 1976) 767
n.3 11, B propos of civic patronage: ‘le patronat n’est pas une fonction obligeant 21 des activitks definies,
This view considers the patronatus of both individuals and communities as specific
manifestations of a universal social phenomenon, labelled by anthropologists as ‘patro-
nage’.126Following this model, the mention of civic patroni in the Latin West has been
assimilated to the expressions of thanks to d . 6 p y e m i commonly found in the civic epigraphy
of the Greek East.I2’ Hence the argument that co-optation of a powerful outsider, such as a
provincial governor, as ‘patronus’ might be connected with benefcia arising from the
individual’s administrative duties.128Hence also the argument that, over time, the title patronus
transforms into a dignity conferred as an act of thanks and, especially when awarded to those
of local origin, is seen as an increasingly empty honour; a development supposedly exemplified
by the co-optation of high-status women as patroni by some Italian communities from the third
century onwards.12’ Such an interpretation is rendered plausible by the undeniably frequent
honouring ofpatroniin relation to acts of civic euergetism.’30However, it is a matter of debate
in these cases whether the benefaction being celebrated has resulted specifically from the
honorand’s action as patronus. It may, I suggest, have arisen, for instance, from the diligent
performance of their function as a government official or from an act of euergetism in their
capacity as a wealthy private individual; the fact that the honorand happens also to be a
patronus of the community being entirely fortuitous. Thus, for example, a careful reading of
the statue-base honouring Antonius Vitellianus, cited in Nicols’ argument, shows that its
wording cannot be used to establish a causal link between his status as apatronus of Canusium
and his being honoured with the erection of a statue explicitly ‘ob insignem eius erga patriam
ac cives adfectionem et singularem industriam ad quietem regionis servandam’. I 3 l It is, after
all, easier to understand Vitellianus’ bringing of quies to the region in relation to the efficient
performance of his duties as praepositus of the tractus Apuliae Calabriae Lucaniae Bruttiorum
rather than as patronus. 132
c’est un titre, celui de patronus qui est dCcernC ti des bienfaiteurs pour les remercier, c’est un mot (et
non une chose) comparable 51 fils de la ville; le titre peut Stre dCcernC pour les mCrites les plus divers.’
126On the application of the anthropological patron-client model to the ancient Mediterranean: Saller,
Personalpatronage (above, n.124) 1-6,the contributions to A. F. Wallace-Hadrill (ed.), Patronage in
Roman society (London 1989), and 8. Deniaux and P. Schmitt-Pantel, ‘La relation patron-client en
Grkce et 9 Rome’, Opvs 6-8 (1987-89) 147-60.
127 Veyne, Le pain et le cirque (above, n.125) 767 n.311, ‘une prCtendue institution qui doit Ctre
rapprochke des titres honorifiques que les cites grecques dCcernent ti leurs bienfaiteurs’; similarly
Jarrett, ‘Decurions and Priests’ (above, n.3) 515, suggested those adlected inter quinquennales were
possibly ‘benefactorsinsufficiently important to be adlected as patrons’. Influence of such thinking:
Nicols, ‘Pliny and the patronage of communities’ (above, n.115) 380-83.
12’ Nicols, ‘Pliny and the patronage of communities’ (above, n.115) 383-85.
12’ M. Kajava, ‘A New City Patroness?’, Tyche 5 (1990) 27-36, at 30-31, lists known patronae
civitatum.
’30 Harmand, Patronage sur les colZectivitis publiques (above, 11.74) 374-84 tended to assume
patrocinium on the basis of attested building activity.
13’ Above, n.109.
132 A possibility in fact admitted by Nicols, ‘Prefects,patronage’, (above, n.101) 216: ‘Moreover, the
achievement of Vitellianus may be the result of his actions as praepositus and have nothing to do with
his status as patronus’.
The borrowing of the Latin terminology patronus and cliens in order to describe the patron-
client phenomenon of anthropology has, I believe, led to an over-readiness to detect it at work
behind the mention of patroni and clientes in Roman literature and epigraph^."^ After all,
Greek-speakers considered the position of the Roman patronus sufficiently distinct from both
xp&vos (Lat. hospes) and ~ k p y t t (Lat. q ~ benefactor) to coin the technical term x&tpwv.
Indeed, as an archetypally Roman institution, the establishment of the relationship of patronus
and cliens was ascribed to Romulus him~e1f.I~~ While the etymology of patronus embodies
the aspect of acting ‘like a father’, emphasising the asymmetry of the relationship, its use
synonymously with advocatus or defensor points to another interpretation of the essence of
patronatus over both individuals and collectivities.’35According to this it would be the
function of the patronus to exercise the influence that he possesses by virtue of his superior
position with a third party in order to protect or further the interests of the ~ l i e n s . Although
’~~
benefits might accrue to the patronus as a result of his actions, too much stress has been
placed on the aspect of reciprocal exchange of goods and services. It is perfectly consonant
with classical views of the social order to imagine that patronatus was an obligation (oflciurn)
concomitant with an elevated social position.13’ The enrolment of such services in the cause
of a community depended upon the establishment of some personal link; not that arguing the
cause of a client community was without its benefit for the patronus, whether it be in the
lawcourts or before the emperor. It afforded an opportunity to raise one’s social and political
profile and demonstrate one’s abilities in the public or imperial arena.13*These considerations
accord with the conclusions of Robert Duthoy concerning the role of civic patroni. He argued
that, far from being one in a range of possible benefactions, the making of interventions
before higher authorities in favour of a subordinate community was the essence of their role
and that, despite their superficial similarities, patronatus and euergetism are far from being
identi~a1.l~~This interpretation of the role of patroni is reflected in the advice of the Antonine
133 Hence my use of the Latin ‘patronus’ throughout this discussion to avoid the danger of the
inappropriate connotations contingent with the anglicized ‘patron’.
134 D.H. 2.10.
135 Civic patronus glossed as eg. populi advocatus (CIL VI 1125 = ILS 1453), advocatus
eloquentissimus(ILT 1514), advocatuspublicus(CIL XI 414 = ILS 6656), advocatus reipublicae (CZL
X I 5416), defensor rei publicae (CIL IX 2354 = ILS 6744), and defensor causae publicae (CIL VIII
26597). More examples: R. Duthoy, ‘Sens et fonction du patronat municipal durant le principat’, AC
53 (1984) 145-56, at 146.
136 Ie. the exercise of his sufiagium by the patronus: G. E. M. de Ste. Croix, ‘Sufiagium:from vote
to patronage’, British Journal of Sociology 5 (1954) 33-48; Duthoy, ‘Sens et fonction’ (above, n.135)
146-47, 150.
137 Saller, Personal patronage (above, n.124) 15-17. Noblesse oblige aspect of public advocacy:
J. A. Crook, Legal Advocacy in the Roman World (London 1995) 95.
13* As emphasized by the character of Aper in Tac. Dial. 5.3. Nicols, ‘Pliny and the patronage of
communities’ (above, n.115) 377.
13’ Duthoy, ‘Sens et fonction’ (above, n.135) 145-56, esp. 147: ‘le patronat Ctait davantage qu’un titre
et impliquait beaucoup plus que le mCcCnat envers la cit6 cliente.’
senator Cornelius Fronto to his fellow citizens of Cirta on the choice of a patronus, by which
he recommended them to select the leading advocates amongst the governing class at Rome.I4’
As Richard Duncan-Jones has observed, ‘the evidence for patronage is not usually of a kind
which allows us to identify its result^'.'^' The motive for calling upon a patronus seems to
have been protection of the community’s interests as often as ambition.I4* The range of
matters requiring the patronus to take on the role of protector might include disputes with the
fiscus over the tax assessment, with the provincial governor, with neighbouring communities
over the attribution of territory, and even with wealthy landowners, including the emperor
himself; and, as Pliny’s correspondence with Trajan makes clear, imperial permission was
even required for major capital expenditure, on such amenities as theatres, walls, and
aqueducts.’43Moreover, just as when a high-status patronus intervened with the emperor (ie.
exercised his sufSragium) to secure promotion for a personal client,144civic patroni might be
used as mediators to improve the chances of a community’s petition to the emperor for an
improvement in status: freedom (libertas) and exemption from taxation (the ius Italicurn)
being the ultimate prizes for provincial c ~ m m u n i t i e s .Even
’ ~ ~ an Italian community, already
privileged in these ways, stood to reap significant benefits from an alteration of its statute, by,
for instance, sharing the burden of providing public services more widely or increasing the
public budget through an increase in the number of magistrates or ordinary d e c u r i o n ~ . ’ ~ ~
‘Leverage’ is the crucial element in the successful management of the relationship between
a client community and a patronus: both the leverage exercised by the community in order
140 Fro. Amic. 2.1 1.1, 3-4. He suggested three candidates, all men of consular rank: E. Champlin,
Fronto and Antonine Rome (Cambridge, Mass. 1980) 10-12.
14’ R. P. Duncan-Jones, ‘Patronage and city privileges - the case of Giufi’, Epigruphische Studien 9
(1972) 12-16, at 15.
14* The aim of Cirta’s search for aputronus was to provide for the tutelu of the town (Fro. Amic. 2.1 1);
similarly c. AD 55 Q. Iulius Secundus, on being co-opted by Tubusuctu in Mauretania, ‘eos [sc.
decuriones et colonos Tubusuctitanos] patrocinio suo tuendos recepit’ (CIL VIII 8837) and at Agbia
(Proconsularis) a patronus was elected ‘ad tuendam rem publicam suam ex consensu decurionum
omnium’ (CIL VIII 1548): B. H. Warmington, ‘The municipal patrons of Roman North Africa’, PBSR
22 (1954) 39-55, Duncan-Jones, ‘Patronageand city privileges (above, n.141) 15.
143 F. G. B. Millar, The emperor in the Roman world (London 1992, 2nd edn) 420-47, surveys the
possibilities.
144 Millar, Emperor (above, n.143) 303-04; P. M: M. Leunissen, ‘Conventions of patronage in
senatorial careers under the Principate’, Chiron 23 (1993) 101-20,especially 112-14.
14’ Eg. A. Vitellius Honoratus, an equestrian procurator, undertook an embassy to Gallienus on behalf
of Thugga pro libertute publica: CIL VIII 26582 = ILS 9018. Duncan-Jones, ‘Patronage and city
privileges (above, n.141) 16, argues for linking several African senators and equestrians with promotion
of their native cities from civitutes to municipiu etc.
14‘ Aquileia honoured C. Minicius Italus, sucessively pruefectus unnonue and Aegypti, for obtaining
from Trajan an extension of local financial obligations to incolue (non-citizen inhabitants): CIL V 875
+ pp. 1024 f. = ILS 1374. The case of Tergeste, that members of the previously ‘attributed’tribes of the
Catuli and the Carni might be admitted to the council and thus share in the burden of the decurionate,
was won before Antoninus Pius by the senator L. Fabius Severus: CIL V 532 = ILS 6680 = Inscrlt X.4
31; F.G. B. Millar, ‘Empire and city, Augustus to Julian: obligations and status’, JRS 73 (1983) 76-90,
at 81.
to persuade the patronus to take on the possibly weighty responsibility and the leverage that
the patronus could exercise in influencing higher authorities to the client’s benefit. Thus, in
the selection of patronal candidates, the two crucial criteria were social prominence and local
connection^.'^^ The ideal candidates were, of course, natives who were also of imperial
prominence, though circumstances frequently dictated an unequal balance of these attributes.
In this respect, during the early empire, Italian and western Mediterranean communities had
an obvious advantage over those of the Greek East and north-western provinces, though as
the geographical origin and social composition of the governing class evolved, so the profile
of civic parroni can be observed to change. Provincial communities were far more likely to
have a native individual in the senatorial order in the third than in the first century and, as the
imperial equestrian service increased its role in imperial government, so the proportion of
equestrian patroni can be seen to rise.I4*Beyond individuals of local origin, prominent
individuals who became landowners in the community through the purchase or inheritance of
estates were prime candidates, even as ~hi1dren.l~’ Here again, Italian communities had an
advantage in acquiring parroni of senatorial rank, because even senators of provincial origin
were required by Trajan to invest a third of their wealth in Italian real estate, the emperor
‘having judged it unseemly ... that those seeking office should consider Rome and Italy not
as their homeland, but as a mere inn or stable as if they were passing thro~gh.”~’
Another regular opportunity to establish patronal ties with prominent individuals from
elsewhere was provided by their performance of administrative duties which brought them
into contact with civic communities. This is particularly significant for provincial com-
munities, where the governor, procurators and their entourages might constitute the only
persons of imperial significance with whom they had the opportunity to establish ~ontact.’~’
Nevertheless, this should not be underestimated as a source of patroni ‘for Italian
communities. Although not graced with the presence of governors until the late third century,
Italy was not short of other senatorial administrators - iuridici, curatores viurum and,
increasingly, curatores civiraris - not to mention various categories of equestrian procurators,
pruefecti and p r ~ e p o s i t i .Curatores
’~~ civiruris were particularly likely to be the target of co-
147 Warmington, ‘Municipal patrons’ (above, n.142) 52-53.

14’ These developments are discussed by Warmington, ‘Municipal patrons’ (above, n.142) 51-55, and
are clearly demonstrated from the figures produced by Nicols, ‘Pliny and the patronage of communities’
(above, n.115) 382, where, however, I disagree with his analysis. Given their stance of cultural
superiority, Greek communities felt less need to have a prominent Roman as intermediary, though often
their embassies would be headed by individuals who had some standing in both spheres.
149 Duthoy, ‘Sc6narios de co-optation’ (above, n.81) 25; Plin. Ep. 4.1.4: ‘[Tifernum Tiberinum] ... me
paene adhuc puerum patronum cooptavit’.
150Plin. Ep. 6.19.4: ‘[Traianus] ... deforme arbitratus ... honorem petituros urbem Italiamque non pro
patria sed pro hospitio aut stabulo quasi peregrinantes habere.’
15’ Hence the high proportion of legates of Numidia attested as patroni of cities in that province:
P.I. Wilkins, ‘Legates of Numidia as Municipal Patrons’, Chiron 23 (1993) 189-202, though his
conclusion that the process was ‘automatic’ is misguided.
15’ Zuridici, procurators and senatorial curators attested as patroni of towns within their spheres of
responsibility are tabulated by Harmand, Patronage sur les collectivitis publiques (above, n.76) 202,
209-10,211-14.
optation because, while they could not be locals, in the overwhelming majority of cases in
Italy, as FranGois Jacques has demonstrated, they originated in the same region; accordingly,
it is no surprise to find that the only known curator of Canusium was also a patronus and
hailed from Herdoniae.ls3 Canusium itself may have had a further advantage in establishing
links with administrative officials, since its role after Italy’s provincialization as a centre for
the late antique concilium Apulorum et Calabrorum suggests that it may have been a base of
operations for the earlier iuridici Apuliae and imperial procurators of the regio s e c ~ n d a . ’ ~ ~
Furthermore, communities could also profit from the personal patronal links running
vertically through aristocratic society. One patronus might use his own personal network of
friendships in order to procure the services of a more powerful or appropriately-skilled
individual, as Statius Sabinus did in acquiring the advocacy of the younger Pliny for
F i r m ~ m . The
’ ~ ~epigraphic evidence suggests that the regulations forbidding the co-optation
of such officials while in office had been relaxed by the imperial period; however, this is not
to be confused with an expectation of benefit from the newly-adopted patronus while still
exercising his office. As is evident from some dedications and tabulae patronatus, it was the
patronal candidate’s potential to be of future aid to the community that was a significant
motive in prompting co-optation, though the choice was habitually justified (and may
genuinely have been founded) on the basis of the candidate’s proven record of meritorious
behaviour and known good disposition towards the community.’s6The willingness to gamble
on the future potential of patroni helps to account for the apparently high proportion of co-
optations of individuals while still at a fairly junior level or of as yet purely municipal dignity.
This phenomenon may be further accounted for by two interlinked factors: firstly, that
individuals less established in their careers might be more receptive to an offer of patronatus
and, secondly, that a community might reasonably expect to take advantage of such
individuals’ own links of putrociniurn with more prestigious members of society.
Very occasionally it was also the case that a patronus might be appointed to a community
by a higher authority. This was so for provincial plaintiffs bringing accusations of
maladministration under the lex Aciliu de repetundarum but is also attested, as a result of the
emperor’s decision, for two communities in Italy at 1ea~t.I~’ Indeed, it seems likely that
153 Jacques, Privildge de liberte‘ (above, 11.20) 116-127 with fig. 1. L. Publilius Celsus Patruinus con-
sularis vir, curator and patronus: CIL IX 688 = ERC I (above, n.1) 266-67, App. I, 7.
154 The presence of the concilium surmised from the posthumous dedication of a gilded equestrian
statue to Flavius Theodosius (father of the emperor) by the Apuli ef Culabri, overseen by the corrector
Apuliae et Culubriae Flavius Sexio: CIL IX 333 = ILS 780 = ERC No 25,ll. 13, 16-20.
Plin. Ep. 6.18; the same process is at work in Fronto’s correspondence with Cirta (above, n.140).
In AD 101 Ferentinum decreed the cooptation of T. Pomponius Bassus ‘ut tantae virtutis vir auxilio
sit futurus municipio nostro’, and in 222 the Clunienses coopted C. Marius Pudens Cornelianus ‘ob
multa et egregia eius in se merita.’: CIL VI 1492, 1454 = ILS 6106,6109. In the later fourth century
Fl. Hyginus, ex-comes and prueses of Mauretania Caesariensis was honoured by Tipasa as patronus ‘ob
merita iustitiae eius’ explicitly ‘post decursam administrationem’:CIL I1 21 10.
157 Appointment of patroni according to the lex Acilia: J.-L. Ferrary, ‘Patrons et accusateurs dans la
procedure <cderepetundiw’, RD 76 (1998) 17-46. Q. Decius Saturninus was honoured by Aquinum as
‘ex auctor(itate) I Ti. Caesaris Augusti et permissu [elius I cooptato coloniae patrono’ (CIL X 5393 =
ILS 6286,ll. 14-16)and P. Otacilius Rufus by Volcei as ‘elect0 a divo Pi0 I patrono municipi’ (CIL X
Caracalla chose two members of his own entourage to argue the case for and against the
claims of the Goharieni near Damascus in AD 216.’58A relationship thus established might
then form the basis for the adoption of a community into the clientelu of the family of the
patronus in perpetuity.”’
Given this range of possible scenarios for co-optation, many of which favoured an Italian
over a provincial community, there seems no reason to assume that the differential in number
(39:12) and status (315 patroni. cc. vv.) of the patroni of Canusium compared with those of
Thamugadi is beyond the realms of normal expectation. Also, considering that some patronal
families are represented by more than one member,IGothe number of individual ties of
patrocinium is reduced from thirty-one to twenty-four for the senatorial and from eight to
seven for the equestrian patrons; this total will have had over three centuries to accrue since
the municipalization of Canusium. In fact, as a result of origin or proven landowning in the
region, a high probability of hereditary patronutus of long standing can be demonstrated for
at least twelve of the senatorial patroni, while six of the eight equestrians seem to be native
to Canusium and a seventh to nearby Brundisium.I6’ Leaving aside the prefects, only two of
the senators are of certifiably provincial origin, in both cases African.16’ It has been noted that
a number of these families rose to prominence in the Antonine period, about the time when
the deductor of the colonia might be exercising his right to select p ~ t r 0 n i . IIn~general
~ it must
have been true that the opportunity of co-optation was commonly separated by a considerable
416 = InscrZt 111.1 22,ll. 5-6): Nicols, ‘The emperor and the selection of the patronus civiratis’ (above,
n.115) 429-32
15* P. Roussel and F. de Visscher, ‘Les inscriptions du temple de Dmeir’, Syria 22 (1942-43) 173-200:
177 = AE (1947) 182 = SEG XVII 759 from Thelsea (modern Dmeir); Crook, Legal advocacy (above,
n.137), 91-94.
159 As the Samians did with the Domitii Ahenobarbi: C. F. Eilers, ‘Cn. Domitius and Samos: a new
extortion trial (IGR 4,968)’, ZPE 89 (1991) 167-78.
‘I5’ Viz. MM. Antonii Balbus and Crispinus (col. I, 11. 7, 23), MM. Statii Longinus, Patruinus and
Longinus iunior (col. I, 11. 8,30-31), L. Bruttius Praesens and C. Bruttius Crispinus (col. I, 11. 13-14),
LL. Pontii Verus, Bassus, and Mauricus (col. I, 11.9,21-22),LL. Valerii Turbo and Turbo iunior (col.
I, 11. 27,32) and ‘IT. Aelii Rufus and Flavianus (col. I, 11. 39-40).
16’ Of the senators, only the MM. Antonii appear to be native to Canusium but the MM. Statii had their
origins in Luceria (with landholdings at Aecae), C. Betitius Pius (col. I, 1. 10) originated from Aeclanum
(with estates at Venusium), the Bruttii in Lucania (with possessions at Volcei, Grumentum, Venusium,
Amiternum and Trebula Mutuesca), C. Iunius Numidianus (col. I, 1. 16) in Venusium, L. Lucilius
Priscillianus (col. I, 1. 20) in Ausculum, C. Sulpicius Arrenianus (col. I, 1. 25) in Herdoniae; for these,
and the local connections of the equestrian patroni, see Silvestrini in ERC I (above, n.1) 50-52, I1 (n.11)
226-8, M. Chelotti, ‘Proprietari e patroni tra Canosa e Venosa’ in L’epigrafia del villaggio, eds
A. Calbi, A. Donati, G.Poma (Faenza 1993)445-55.
L. Flavius Lucillianus from Cuicul in Numidia and P. Marcius Maximillianus from Bulla Regia in
Proconsularis (col I, 11. 28-29); Silvestrini in ERC I1 (above, n.1 l), 227.
Most notably the family of these Bruttii had been made patrician by Antoninus Pius and their great-
grandfather held a second consulship with the emperor in 139 (PIR’ B 164); their aunt, Bruttia Crispina,
married the emperor Commodus in 178 (PIR’ B 170):Pflaum, Marbre de Thorigny (above, n.94) 37-38,
Whittaker, Herodian I (above, n.85) Ixxvi, Silvestrini in ERC I1 (above, n.11) 227, Grelle, Canosa
romana (above, n.9) 139.
period of time from any instance of the actual exercise of patronatus by an individual and his
descendants. This fact seems all too often to have been forgotten in considering the
personalities of the leading patroni of Canusium, their placement in the list and the possible
occasions of both their co-optation and their effective exercise of patronatus. In short, there
is no reason to canclude, as did Duncan-Jones, that an accumulation of patroni such as
Canusium’s reflects a general unresponsiveness by patroni to the appeals of the clients.lm If
this group of patroni is not extraordinary in number, what of its claimed eminence?
5 Praefecti praetorio
Since so much depends upon the prominent presence of the four praetorian prefects amongst
the senatorial patroni of Canusium, it is advisable to subject Pflaum’s identifications to a fresh
and detailed prosopographical analysis. For, in the enthusiasm with which scholars have taken
up his suggestion in order to illustrate the nature of Severus Alexander’s regime, fix the date
of Ulpian’s death, or demonstrate the prefects’ role as patroni, it seems to have been forgotten
that explicit evidence for assigning the function of praetorian prefect at any date exists only
for two of these four individuals: Aedinius Iulianus and Domitius H 0 n o r a t ~ s . In
l ~ ~fact, new
papyrological evidence even undermines the assumption that they held or had held that post
at the date of the album.
Neither T. Lorenius Celsus nor L. Didius Marinus are explicitly attested as praetorian
prefects, In fact nothing further is known of Lorenius Celsus beyond his citation as patronus
coloniae, although there are other notable Lorenii at Rome in this period,’66 one of whom, L.
Lorenius L.f. Crispinus, was a senator by AD 231 and achieved a suffect consulship before
AD 244.’67Given the comparative rarity of the nornen, it is tempting to relate them. As for L.
Didius Marinus, although some have expressed doubts,’68the identification of the senatorial
patronus of Canusium of AD 223 with a homonymous equestrian officer of the reigns of
Septimius Severus and Caracalla has always been generally accepted.’69From the evidence
Duncan-Jones, ‘Patronageand city privileges (above, n. 141) 15.

16’ As emphasized by A. Stein, ‘Le marbre de Thorigny’, Eunomia: Ephemeridis Listy Filologi& Sup-
plementum 1 (1957) 1-7, at 5.
166 CIL VI 16441-42, early third-century, commemorates Q. Lorenius Q.f. Romanus Repentinus and
Lorenia Pacata, children of Cornelia T.f. Repentina; she is plausibly daughter of Cornelius Repentinus,
suffect consul before AD 193 (PIR2C 1427),brother-in-law of the ill-fated emperor Didius Iulianus,
and granddaughter of Sex. Cornelius Repentinus, praetorian prefect to Antoninus Pius and Marcus
Aurelius, in office on 29 July 163 (AE (1916) 47) and honoured with ornarnenta consularia (PIR’ C
1428).
167 CIL VI 2038,l. 7: Lorenius Crispinus as frater arvalis; CIL VI 1447 + 31657 (from outside the
Porta Latina): L. Lorenius L.f. Pal. Crispinus clarissimus vir and consul (not ordinary consul of 224,
as M. Silvestrini in ERC I (above, n.l), 50),dated to the kalends of January AD 244. His daughter
L. Lorenia Cornelia L.f. Crispina clarissima puella is named by the accompanying CIL VI 1448.
H. Dessau in PIR I1 (1897) 10-11, D 63 and 64; A. Stein in RE V.l (1903) col. 424, s.vv. Didius
9 and 10, compare Stein in PIR‘ I1 (1933) 15, D 71; Jard6, Se‘vdre Alexandre (above, n.86) 123.
169 Damadenus, Aes Redivivum (above, n.4) cap. xxi, 65,,A. Stein, Der romische Ritterstand: ein
Beitrag zur Sozial- und Personnengeschichte des romischen Reiches (Munich 1927) 241 and PIR’ D
71, P. Lambrechts, La composition du se‘nat romain de Septime Se‘vkre a Diocle‘tien (193-284)
of six separate inscriptions, his career up until c . AD 215 can be traced from tribune of a
praetorian cohort to vir perfectissimus procurator Augusti provinciae Asiae et a sacris
cognitionibus under Cara~a1la.l~’ Didius Marinus may have proved to be a prudent choice as
patronus. The administration of justice entrusted to Marinus by Caracalla is some indication
of the extent of his closeness to imperial circles, to which it would seem he was no stranger.
Already under Commodus, while still only a vir egregius, he shared ownership of a water
supply in Ostia with the emperor’s sister C~rnificia,’~’ even if this is rather too flimsy a basis
on which to consider them husband and wife.’72If Marinus were Cornificia’s husband, then
his career was remarkably unaffected by her forced suicide in c. AD 213 at the hands of
C a r a ~ a 1 l a . IHowever,
~~ despite the full and varied evidence for Marinus’ illustrious
connections and career up to AD 215 (when as virpegectissimus he was still equestrian),
there is no record of his activity thereafter until his appearance as senatorial patronus in 223.
His tenure of the post of praetorian prefect, and that of Celsus, relies solely upon the
deductions made by Pflaum on the basis of their rankings as patroni cc. vv. on the album
relative to Aedinius Iulianus and Domitius Honoratus, with whom Pflaum felt himself to be
on firmer ground.
In reference to his role as patronus of its honorand, T. Sennius Sollemnis, the famous
‘Thorigny marble’ (a statue-base known since 1580) unequivocally qualifies a certain
Aedinius Iulianus, an ex-governor of the province of Lugdunensis, as someone ‘who has sub-
sequently been praetorian prefect’.‘74 Given the rarity of the nomen Aedinius and the
(Budapest 1937) 48, no. 545, Barbieri, Albo senatorio (above, n.88) 205-06, no. 1013, Pflaum,
Carri2resI1 (above, n.92) 765-67, no. 295, H. Devijver, Prosopographiamilitiarum equestrium quae
fuerunt ab August0 ad Gallienum5 vols [hereafter PME] (Leuven 1976-93) I1 323, D 8.
170CIL 111 6753 = ILS 1396 Ancyra (Galatia),A E (1911) 4+5 Aquae Originae (Gallaecia), I.Ephesos
660e and 3051, AE (1933) 282 Pergamum (Asia); this last known post probably dates to c. AD 215:
Pflaum, Carri2res I1 (above, n.92) 768-69, no. 295.
17’G. Barbieri, ‘Regione I’ NSA ser.8a, 7 [78] (1953) 151-89, at 155, no. 6 (= AE (1954) 171), a:
‘XXXX Cornificiae Aug(usti) n(ostri) so[r(oris)]’;b: ‘Didi Marini e(gregii) v(iri) e[t ?fil(ii/iorum)]’.
Cornificia, daughter of M. Aurelius, born c. 160: PIRz C 1505; M.-Th. Raepsaet-Charlier, Prosopo-
graphie desfemmes de l’ordre sinatoriale: Ier-IIe sikcles (Leuven 1987) 261-3, no. 294 and stemma
XXVI.
172 G. Barbieri, ‘Regione I’ (above, 11.171) 155-58, argued that the waterpipe demonstrated that Marinus
had made an advantageous marriage to Cornificia after she was widowed by Commodus’ execution of
M. Petronius Sura Mamertinus in AD 190/92; a proposal taken up by H.-G. Pflaum, ‘Les gendres de
Marc-Aurkle’, JS (1961) 28-41, at 35-36 and Carribres 111 (Paris 1961) 996-97, no. 295, R. Syme,
‘Fiction about Roman Jurists’, (above, n.101) 101, Devijver, PMEI (above, n.169) 322-23 D 8.
173 D.C.[Petr.Patr.] 78.16.6a.
174 CIL XI11 3162 = ILTG 341, Face I, 11.20-22: ‘[Sollemnis] ... fuit cliens probatissimus Aedini Iuliani
I leg(ati) Aug(usti) prov(inciae) Lugd(unensis) qui postea praefectus praet(orio) I fuit ...’. General
commentary: Th. Mommsen, ‘Epigraphische Analekten, N. 20, N. 22’, Berichte uber die
Verhandlungender Konigl. sachs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, phil.-hist. Classe 4
(1852) 228-29, 235-53; Pflaum, Marbre de Thorigny (above, 11.94) 1-30, 49-63; 8. Deniaux,
‘Viducasses et Unelles. Recherches sur la municipalisation de I’Ouest de la Gaule’ in Citis, municipes,
colonies: Les processus de municipalisation en Gaule et en Germanie sous le Haut Empire romain, eds
M. Dondin-Payre and M.-Th. Raepsaet-Charlier (Paris 1999) 243-48. Though originating from Vieux
(Viducasses) near Caen, the stone has taken its name from its renaissance sojourn at Torigni-sur-Vire.
I50 THE EPIGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE OF ROMAN ITALY
description of the governorship (datable to c. 220) by the senatorial title legatus A u g u ~ t i , ’ ~ ~

this man has long been considered identical with the M. Aedinius Iulianus patronus c. v. of
Canusium of AD 223.176The wording of the inscription strongly suggests that by the time of
the dedication of Sollemnis’ statue, on 16 December 238, Iulianus’ tenure of the prefecture
lay in the past.’77Opinion varied between c. 235 and some time closer to the end of 238!78
The evidence seemed to confirm the view that Severus Alexander’s supposed reform of the
status of the prefecture might open the office to men of senatorial origin, especially under the
senatorial champions Maximus and Balbin~s.’~’
However, in 1900 Arthur Stein and Seymour de Ricci both realised that the recently
published P.0xy. 35 recto seemed to name an ‘[Aledinius Iulianus’ in office as prefect of
Egypt at some point in AD 223, an identification confirmed by subsequent discoveries.18’
Aedinius Iulianus’ appearance as a prefect of Egypt (a traditionally equestrian office) in the
same year as a clarissimate patronus of Canusium, led some to doubt that they could be the
same individual.’” Walther Thiele, preferring to retain the connection, suggested that
Iulianus’ Egyptian prefecture expired in AD 223, whereupon he was adlected to the senate,
175 Indeed, Fabretti had cited the album principally to illustrate the gentilicium Aedinius: Inscriptionum
Antiquarum explicatio (above, n.27) 658; excluding the Aedinius Iulianus of Torigni and Canusium,
there are only thirty-four other examples of Aedinius to be found in the indices of CIL and subsequent
publications, none of whom are eminent enough to warrant mention in PIR or PLRE. Iulianus’
governorship, which he himself describes (Face II1,l. 9) as quinquefascalis, ie. with the symbols of a
praetor, is dated in relation to his predecessor, Ti. C1. Paulinus (above, n.13): PIR’ C 955.
176 Eg. the note of B. Borghesi, published in his Oeuvres complktes X, ed. E. Cuq (Paris 1897) 119-20,
E. Desjardins, GPographie historique et administrative de la Gaule romaine I11 (Paris c. 1886) 204,
P. von Rohden in RE I (1 894) cols. 464-65, E. Klebs in PIR I ( 1 897) 1 1 A 92.
177 Face I, 11.29-30: ‘... XVII k. Ian. Pi0 et Proculo I cos.’
17’ Prefecture c. AD 235: 0.Hirschfeld, Untersuchungen auf dem Gebiete der romischen Verwaltungs-
geschichte (Berlin 1876) 236, P. von Rohden in RE I (1894) cols. 464-65 and PIR I (1 897) 11, A 92;
in 238 or only a little earlier: A. von Domaszewski, ‘Untersuchungen zur romischen Kaisergeschichte,
111. Die Inschriften des Timesitheus’,RhM 58 (1903) 218-30, at 228, Stein, Rom. Ritterstand (above,
n.169) 254, PIR’ I(1933) 17, A 113, and Die Prafekten von Agypten in der romischen Kaiserzeit (Bern
1950) 127-28.
179 Von Domaszewski, ‘Untersuchungen zur rom. Kaisergeschichte’ (above, n. 178) 228-29; compare
M. T. W. Amheim, ‘Third-centurypraetorian prefects of senatorial origin: fact or fiction’, Athenaeum
n.s. 49 (1971) 74-88. Alexander’s ‘reform’: above, n.93.
B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt (eds), The Oxyrhynchus Papyri I (London 1898) 75, no. 35,l. 11: ‘...I*
L ~ E Z V ~ ‘Ioultavoi,
OU Cx6pxou Aiydntou after the names of the consuls (11.6-7) the remainder of the
date is mutilated; A. Stein, ‘Nachlesezur liste der Prafecten von Aegypten’, JOAI 3 (1900) Beiblatt,
cols 209-12, at cols 21 1-12, S. de Ricci, ‘The Praefects of Egypt’, Proceedings of the Society of Biblical
Archaeology 20 (1900) 374-83, at 382, no. 74. Other testimonia: G. Bastianini, ‘Lista dei prefetti
d’Egitto dal30a al299p’, ZPE 17 (1975) 236-328, at 308.
181 Stein, ‘Prafecten von Aegypten’ (above, n.180) Beibl., col. 212, RE Suppl. I (1903) col. 12, JardB,
SkvBre Alexandre (above, n.86) 41 -42 n.6, distinguished Aedinius Iulianus praefectus Aegypti from
M. Aedinius Iulianus C.V. patronus coloniae and praefectus praetorio.
hence his clarissimate on the album.lx2However, in 1942 Laurence Lee Howe was the first
to propose that Aedinius was promoted directly from praefectus Aegypti to praetorio and that
he occupied the latter office when the quinquennales of Canusium drew up their album in
223;Is3 a conclusion reached independently five years later by Pflaum, who moreover
convincingly dispensed with the awkward legateship, explaining it as careless shorthand by
the drafter of the laudatio of Sollemnis for the technically correct but longer term for an
equestrian stand-in: procurator Augusti et vice praesidis ~ g e n s . ”Thus,
~ since Iulianus’
praetorian prefecture cannot predate the year of the album itself, if, as Nicols suggests, he was
co-opted as patronus specifically for his powers of jurisdiction in Italy, this dictates a very
narrow window of opportunity for his appointment to the prefecture, courting, and subsequent
co-optation by the Canusini before the inscribing of the album.
Similarly, until 1898 L. Domitius Honoratus presented no problems; he was known only
as patronus of Canusium.18’Then another papyrus from the first volume of the Oxyrhynchus
Papyri (No 62 recto) named one Domitius Honoratus as the prefect of Egypt presiding over
judicial proceedings dated to Tybi 11 (6 January) of the fifth year of an emperor whose name
began ‘Marcus A[. . .]’.Ix6 The original editor, Bernard Grenfell, assigned it to AD 242, the
fifth year of the reign of M. Antonius Gordianus (Gordian III).IR7However, this was swiftly
followed by the association of Domitius Honoratus’ name with a then recently published
statue base, originating from the legionary camp of Nicopolis outside Alexandria.”’ This is
a column of pink Aswan granite, damaged at top and bottom, honouring a certain Honoratus
eminentissimus vir and praetorian prefect.’”
lS2 Thiele, Sev. Alex. (above, 11.85) 82-83: ‘Cum eundum [ie. praef. Aeg. a. 2231 esse M. Aedinium
Iulianum praef. praet. ordinis senatorii paulo ante annum 238 veri simillimum sit et Aedinius Iulianus
in albo Canusino C. IX 338 a. 223 inter curatores (sic) senatorii ordinis occurrat, eum post Aegypti
praefecturam in ordinem amplissimum adlectum esse conicio.’; followed by Stein in PZR’ I (1933) 17,
A 113, Lambrechts, Composition (above, n.169) 105.
183 Howe, Pretorian Prefect (above, n.90) 76, no. 38 and App. I1 C, 100-05,especially 103.
184 As used by Iulianus himself, on the left face of the same stone, of his own successor: col. 111 11. 3-4.
Pflaum, Marbre de Thorigny (above, n.94) 48; but compare Stein, ‘Le marbre de Thorigny’ (above,
n.165) 2-4.
lS5 H. Dessau in PZR I1 (1897) 22, D 130.
lS6 P.0xy. 62 recto, 1. 3; autopsy of the original confirms the reading ‘... [C]touc E’ M&plc[o]u A[...]’:
Bodleian MS.Gr.class. d61 (P).
187 Grenfell and Hunt (eds), P.0xy. I (above, n.177) 120-21. In fact, later discoveries were to reveal
that one Aurelius Basilius filled the post at that time: Bastianini, ‘Prefetti d’Egitto’ (above, n.180) 31 1.
lS8 CZL I11 12052 + 14127, first brought to scholarly attention in 1891: G. Botti, Notices des monuments
expose‘s au Musle gre‘co-romain(Alexandria 1893) 156, no. 2496. Attribution to Domitius Honoratus:
Stein, ‘Prafecten von Aegypten’ (above, n.180) Beibl., cols 210-1 1; de Ricci, ‘The Praefects of Egypt’
(above, n.180) 382, no. 73.
lS9 Text after F. Kayser, Recueil des inscriptions grecques et latines (nonfune‘raires) d’Alexandrie
impe‘riale (Zer-ZIIes. apr. J.-C.) (Cairo 1994),no. 19 with pl. XII, except that, given that the grammar
underlying the dedication is Greek, I prefer to understand ‘praetorii’ rather than ‘praetorio’ in 1. 3 and
am wary of including Honoratus’ praenomen in the supplement for the first line, given that the dedicant,
Tychianus, has not employed his. Tychianus’ name: F. Kayser, ‘P. Acilius ou Pacilius?’, BZFAO 1989,
[Domitium]
Honoratum
praef(ectum) praetor(ii)
em(inentissimum) v(irum)
Pacilius Tychianus
7 (centurio) L(egionis) I1 Tr(aianae) F(ortis) G(ermanicae) Sever(ianae)
Although it does not name the honorand as having been prefect of Egypt, this belongs to the
genre of inscriptions by junior officers that celebrate the promotion of their commander (and
no doubt patronus) to a yet more prestigious post, of which two parallel examples, explicitly
attesting their honorands as prefects of both Egypt and the praetorium, survive from
Ale~andria.’’~ The association of this column with Domitius Honoratus stems from the
honorific epithet ‘Severiana’ borne by the legion. This places this inscription firmly in the
reign of Severus Alexander, which began on 11/12 March 222.”’
The vast majority of commentators, considering Domitius Honoratus to appear as patronus
C.V. on the album Canusium in 223 as a current or recently retired praetorian prefect, have
proposed putting P.0xy. 62 recto in ‘the fifth year of M. A[urelius Antoninus]’ (ie.
Elagabalus), so dating it to 6 January 222.’’’ According to this reconstruction, Domitius
Honoratus was, as prefect of Egypt, the immediate successor of Geminius Chrestus, attested
between 13 August 219 and sometime in 22011, and predecessor to Aedinius Iulianus, who
is attested as praefectus Aegypti on Hathor 7 (= 3 November) of a year presumed to be AD
222.193Also, since Geminius Chrestus is the same as the ill-fated Chrestus who was appointed
215-18. Not out of place as a native of Canusium: compare P. Pacilius Chrysomallus, eleventh pedanus
(col. 111, 1. 42).
190 OGIS I1 707 = IGRR I11 1103 = ILS 8846 to T. Furius Victorinus (AD 160) and CIL I11 14137 = I L S
8998 to T. Longaeus Rufus (AD 185); now Kayser, Inscriptions gr. et lat. (above, n. 189) nos 21 and
18 respectively. Compare the near contemporary AE (1988) 1051, in which Tyre celebrates the
promotion of its famous son, Ulpian, from jurisconsult and praefectus unnonae to praetorian prefect:
‘Domitio Ulpiano praefecto I praetorio eminentissimo viro, I iuris consulto item praefecto I annonae
sacrae urbis, Seberia I Felix Aug(usta) [Ty]rior(um)Col(onia) Metropol(is) I patria (dedicavit).’
19’D. Kienast, Romische Kaisertabelle. Grundziige einer romischen Kaiserchronologie (Darmstadt
1996,2nd edn) 172.
192 Stein, ‘Prgfecten von Aegypten’ (above, n.180) Beibl., col. 210-11, RE V.2 (1905) cols 1427-28,
Untersuchungenzur Geschichte m d Venvaltungs Agyptens unter romischer Herrscha$ (Stuttgart 1915 )
109 n.2, PIRz vol. 111(Berlin 1943)49, D 151, and Prufekten von Agypten (above, n.178) 125; de Ricci,
‘The Praefects of Egypt’ (above, n.180) 382, no. 73; L. Cantarelli, ‘La serie dei Prefetti d’Egitto, I.
Ottaviano August0 a Diocleziano’, MAL 12 (1906) 48-129, at 111-12; J. Lesquier, L’Armke romaine
d’Egypte d’Auguste ir Dioclktien (Cairo 1918) 516; 0. W. Reinmuth, The Prefect of Egypt from
Augustus to Diocletian (Berlin 1935) 138, and RE XXII.2 (1954) col. 2375; Howe, Pretorianprefect
(above, n.90), 102-03; Pflaum, Marbre de Thorigny (above, n.94) 40; Modrzejewski, ‘Les Prkfets
d’Egypte’ (above, n.lOO) 61; Bastianini, ‘Prefetti d’Egitto’ (above, n.180) 308; Devijver, PME V
(above, n.169) 2090, D 22 bis.
193 Bastianini, ‘Prefetti d’Egitto’ (above, n. 180) 308; Aedinius Iulianus praefectus Aegypti on 3
November: P.Flor. 1(1906) 57, col. I, 1. 27, col. I1 1. 92 ... ‘Afilbpr’, as read by U. Wilcken, ‘Zu den
Florentiner Papyri und den Leipziger Papyri’, APF4 (1908) 443 = P.Flor. 111 (1915) 382.
to the praetorian prefecture on the accession of Severus Alexander in March 222,’” this
reconstruction produces a series of swift promotions from Egypt to the praetorium in rapid
succession between 221 and 223. Concluding that Honoratus ought also to have preceded
Iulianus in the praetorian prefecture, Pflaum was compelled to suppose that the Canusini had
listed the pairs of praetorian prefects (Didius Marinus and Domitius Honoratus, Lorenius
Celsus and Aedinius Iulianus) in reverse order of seniority in order to place the existing
office-holders in the position of greatest honour.’95 Jardt, on the other hand, favoured
dissociating the Domitius Honoratus pruefectus Aegypti and praefectus praetorio em. v. from
L. Domitius Honoratus, the clarissimate patronus of AD 223, and preferred to date the
papyrus to the fifth year of Marcus A[urelius Severus Alexander] (ie. 6 January 226).Ig6
Underlying both theories is a shared conviction that the mention of the eminentissimate on the
Alexandrian inscription cannot post-date the clarissimate of the album: that is, that the two
titles must be mutually exclusive.197
Certainly tenure of the praetorian prefecture and senatorial membership were traditionally
considered incompatible. Entry into the senate was reserved as a reward for This
understanding is inherent in Tacitus’ remark on the appointment of Arrecinus Clemens to the
prefecture, ‘although of the senatorial order’, and is implicit in the anecdote attributed to
Marius Maximus, which is embedded in the very passage of the Historia Augusta on Severus
Alexander’s supposed promotion of his prefects to senatorial status.”’ Alexander’s practice
is contrasted with that of his predecessors who had allegedly used the despatch of the tunica
kzticluvia to a praetorian prefect to signal the man’s retirement by promotion to the senate.”’
However, despite a hiatus under Hadrian, it had also not been uncommon for the prefects to
be awarded honorary senatorial decorations - the omamenta praetoria or consularia - while
still holding office?” These honours did not confer actual membership of the Senate; nor did
lg4 PIRz G 144. Chrestus and his colleague Iulius Flavianus soon succumbed to the machinations of
Iulia Mamaea and her prot6g6, Ulpian: above, n.99.
lg5 Pflaum, Marbre de Thorigny (above, n.94) 40-41, followed by Modrzejewski and Zawadzki, ‘La
date de la mort d’Ulpien’ (above, n.101) 592-99.
196 Jard6, Skv&-eAlexandre (above, n.86) 39 n.2.
lg7 Rea on P.Uxy. 2565 in vol. XXXI (above, n.lOO).
After Sejanus, no praetorian prefect, while in office, was promoted to the Senate via the ordinary
consulshipuntil C. Fulvius Plautianus in 203, who gained this irregular honour through a combination
of his kinship with the emperor Septimius Severus and the marriage of his daughter, Plautilla, to
Caracalla: A. R. Birley, Septimius Severus: the African emperor (London 1999,3rd edn) 144,220.
lg9 Tac. Hist. 4.68: ‘quamquam senatorii ordinis’: SHA V.Alex. 21.4: above, n.93.
200 In fact, ‘ignorance and confusion is patent’, since the author of the vita Alexandri was incorrectly
equating the ornamenta accompanying the dignitas senatoria (ie. the latus clavus and the epithet vir
clurtrsimus) with full membership of the senate: R. Syme, ‘Guard Prefects of Trajan and Hadrian’, JRS
70 (1980) 64-80, at 76. Compare Chastagnol, Recherches sur 1’HA (above, n.91) 41, and ‘Latus clavus
et udlectio dans 1’HistoireAuguste’ in Historia Augusta Colloquium (1975-1976), ed. J. Straub (Bonn
1978) 125-26.
201 Syme, ‘Guard Prefects’ above, 11.200) 75-76.
A. Passerini, Le coortipretorie (Roma 1939) 223 and
W. Ensslin, RE XXII.2 (1954) cols 2398-99 list prefects granted ornamenra.
they change one’s census Moreover, since the jurists do use ‘vir clarissimus’
as a useful shorthand for full senator (on occasion even in implicit contrast to those honoured
with senatorial ornamenta) it might be thought that ornati did not have the right to be titled
by the epithet of senatorial rank.203However, that the ornamenta did indeed confer the right
to be called clarissimus, at least by the Severan period, is confirmed beyond doubt by a lead
water-pipe bearing the stamp of one of Caracalla’s prefects, whom Cassius Dio tells us
received the ornumenfa consularia: ‘M. Opelli Macrini pr(aefecti) pr(aetori0) c. v . ’ . ~ ~
That
clarissimus vir here reflects ornumenfa rather than adlection to the senate is demonstrated by
Dio’s scandalized reaction to the fact that both Macrinus and his fellow prefect M. Oclatinius
Adventus were still equestrians up to the moment of their elevation to the purple, in 217, and
nomination to the ordinary consulship, in 2 18, respectively.20sSeeing that such senatorial
honours did not confer effective membership of the assembly, we should not be surprised to
find praetorian prefects granted ornamenta described variously as viri eminentissimi and
clarissimi (ie. styled alternatively by the title traditionally attached to their post or that of the
honorary rank attaching to their person alone), as appears to have happened with Adventus
and Macrinus themselves.2MThis removes JardB’s objection to identifying the clarissimate L.
Domitius Honoratus of the album with Honoratus em. v. of the Alexandrian inscription.
This is a significant consideration because, as it happens, the content of a second, as yet
unpublished, Oxyrhynchus papyrus vindicates JardB’s dating of P. Oxy. 62 recto.207This
document mentions not only Domitius Honoratus as prefect of Egypt, along with Severus
202 Talbert, Senate of Imperial Rome (above, n.45) 160, 366. From Plautianus’ consulship in AD 203
some equivalence was made between ornamenta consularia and the office of consul for awardees who
subsequently attained the full honour; but the practice ceased after AD 220: D.C.[Xiph.] 79[78].13.2;
R. W. B. Salway, ‘A fragment of Severan history: the unusual career of ...atus, Praetorian Prefect of
Elagabalus’, Chiron 27 (1997) 127-53, at 148-49.
’03 Ulp. de 08cos. 2 (Dig. 50.16.100): “‘Speciosaspersonas” accipere debemus clarissimas personas
utriusque sexus, item {eorum,)quae senatoriis omamentis utuntur.’ (We ought to accept as ‘respectable
persons’ clarissimate persons of both sexes, as well as those who enjoy senatorial honours). It was
Ulpian’s intention here to indicate that the category of ‘speciosae personae’ was to comprise all
clarissimi of both sexes, including those with ornamenta;demonstratingthat the latter category was in
general accorded the same honours as ‘full senators’.
’04 D.C.[Xiph.] 79[78].14.4. ILS461a Rome; compare another urban fistula from c. AD 160, CIL XV
7439: ‘Sex. Cornel(ii) Repentini pr. pr. c. v.’.
205 D.C.[Xiph.] 79[78].14.4. Leunissen, Konsuln und Konsulare (above, n. 101) 310, unnecessarily
supposes Macrinus’ adlection inter consulares in April 217.
206 In CJ 9.51.1, a dateless and placeless record of judicial proceedings before Caracalla, the prefects
Adventus and Macrinus are qualified as viri clarissimi, while in similar proceedings of 27 May 216 in
Antioch, recorded epigraphically at Thelsea in Syria (AE (1947) 182 = SEG XVII 759), the attendant
prefects are qualified as eminentissimi viri. Although the latter prefects are anonymous, the date requires
that they are none other than the aforementioned Adventus and Macrinus. Since the dates of both the
CJ text and their receipt of the ornamenta is unknown, while it is not possible to be certain, it is quite
probable that the reference to them here as eminentissimi post-dates their ornamenta.There is no reason
to reject the authenticity of the prefects’ clarissimatein CJ 9.5 1.1, as Millar, Emperor (above, n. 143)
121 n.82.
207P.Ony. ined. 101/130(d),referred to by R. A. Coles, Reports of Proceedings in Papyri (Brussels
1966) 34 n.1, and 59, but with the AD 242 dating.
Alexander as Augustus, but also the emperor’s mother, Iulia Mamaea, and his wife, Sallustia
Barbia Orbiana, as Augustae.’”’ Mamaea did not receive the title Augusta until after Severus
Alexander’s accession to sole rule (in March AD 222) but, more significantly, Barbia
Orbiana’s marriage to Alexander is to be dated to between 28 August 225 and 30 August 227,
after which time she fell from favour and was exiled to Africa.”’ Given the already noted
prefectures of Aedinius Iulianus in 223 and Aurelius Epagathus in 224 and the further
consideration that a certain Ti. Claudius Herennianus is attested as acting prefect of Egypt in
January 225,2’” the only plausible date for P.0xy. 62 recto is now Tybi 11 of the fifth year of
Severus Alexander (ie. 6 January 226). In fact, it is most probable that Honoratus succeeded
Herennianus in the summer of 226.
The repercussions of the new date for Honoratus’ prefecture of Egypt to the region of AD
226 are manifold and far-reaching. Most immediately, it has the virtue of producing a much
less crowded chronology for the turnover of holders of the Egyptian prefecture in the 220s.
For it is possible to imagine that Geminius Chrestus remained in post until called upon to fill
one of the positions made vacant by the murder of Elagabalus’ praetorian prefects on 11/12
March 222. There is also no impediment to considering Aedinius Iulianus as Chrestus’
immediate successor in the prefecture of Egypt, which moreover he need not have vacated
until the appointment of Epagathus, the engineer of Ulpian’s murder, before, at the latest,
some point in the month of Pauni (26 May124 June) 224.’“ As Modrzejewski and Zawadzki
suggested, it seems probable that Iulianus’ departure from Egypt is to be associated with his
promotion to the praetorian prefecture as one of the replacements of the murdered jurist; but
these events may now be placed as late as the early months of AD 224.’” Therefore, Iulianus
is likely to have still been pruefectus Aegypti and Ulpian pruefectus pruetorio when the
Canusini drafted their album. Thus we may amend Guido Bastianini’s list of prefects for the
decade AD 220-30 as follows (with earliest and latest attestations):’13
Geminius Chrestus 13 Aug. 219 ZGRR I 1179,5 (Coptos)
30 Aug. 220129 Aug. 221 P.Grenf. 149, 10
M. Aedinius Iulianus 3 Nov. (222123) P.Flor. I11 382, i 27, ii 92
(1 Jan.13 1 Dec.) 223 P. Oxy. I 35 recto, 11
208 Content kindly communicated to me by Dr J. R. Rea of the Ashmolean Museum.

209 Chronological details: Kienast, Rom. Kaisertabelle (above, n. 191) 179-80.
210 P.Harr. 68 of 6 January AD 225.
211 While it is mistaken to maintain, as did P. J. Sijpesteijn, ‘SB IV 7473 again’, ZPE 92 (1992) 197-
200, at 200, that Aedinius Iulianus is definitely attested as prefect of Egypt as late as May/June 223 on
the basis of P.Ryl. 610 (because the prefect’s name is not preserved in that document), there is no reason
why P.FZor. 382 cannot date to 3 November 223, rather than 222 as generally assumed (above, n. 193).
212 Compare Modrzejewski and Zawadzki, ‘La date de la mort d’lllpien’ (above, n.lO1) 600-08.
213 Compare Bastianini,‘Prefetti d’Egitto’ (above, n.180) 308-09, and ‘La lista dei prefetti d’Egitto dal
30a al299p. Aggiunte e correzioni’, ZPE 38 (1980)75-89, at 86. Following Sijpestein, ‘SB IV 7473
again’ (above, n.211) 197-200, in re-dating SB IV 7473 = AE (1928) 107 = SEG VIII 658, 1. 14
(Coptos),I have removed the prefecture of the enigmatic [.]aleriusfrom (what Sijpesteijn considered
the narrow gap) between Iulianus and Epagathus to the third year of Maximinus (30 Aug. 236/29 Aug.
237).
M. Aurelius Epagathus 26 May124 June 224 P.0xy. XXXI 2565,6

Ti. Claudius Herennianus JuneDec. 224 P.0xy. XXXI 2565, 15
(5-13) Feb. (225) P.Oxy. XXXIV 2705,2
L. Domitius Honoratus 6 Jan. 226 P.0xy. I 62 recto, 3
Claudius Masculinus 30 Aug. 230 P.Mich. I11 164, 20
(ex-prefect by) 12 May (231) P.Lond. I11 946,5
The text of the Alexandrian dedication to Honoratus remains, of course, perfectly congruent
with his promotion to the praetorian prefecture at some point in the reign of Severus
Alexander after 6 January 226. But, lest we be tempted to follow Jard6 in considering the
Domitius Honoratus who was not yet prefect of Egypt, let alone praetorian prefect, in 223 to
be distinct from L. Domitius Honoratus the patronus c.v. of Canusium, it should be noted that,
despite the apparent banality of its components, the combination ‘Domitius Honoratus’ does
not otherwise appear in the indices of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Thus it is hardly
plausible to imagine two distinct Domitii Honorati of similar age and eminence
simultaneously active in the upper echelons of Roman society.
Given the implausibility of considering the prefect of Egypt, Domitius Honoratus, distinct
from the patronus, how is his presence amongst the senatorial patroni at some stage in his
career prior to his prefecture of Egypt, let alone of the praetorium, to be understood? One
might be tempted to reconcile this apparent paradox by arguing, as some in the past
that the reign of the eccentric Elagabalus witnessed a mixing of senatorial and equestrian
careers that would have permitted someone of senatorial birth to hold these traditionally
equestrian offices. The fact that prefects of Egypt and of the praetorium are, in papyri of the
period, sometimes qualified as hapnp6raToG (ie. clarissimus) was cited in support of
senatorial origin and However, it was not until the 260s that the Greek epithets were
treated as technical translations with stable Latin Moreover, this avenue of
argument has been closed on two counts: firstly, in general by re-interpretation of the one
inscription that had lent weight to this view;2” and, secondly, more specifically in the case of
Domitius Honoratus by recent epigraphic discoveries that demonstrate that he followed a
traditional equestrian career before his prefecture of Egypt in 226.’”
’I4 So E. Bormann and G. Henzen, CIL VI. 1 (Berlin 1876) on no. 3839, H. Dessau, ILS I (Berlin 1892)
296 n.1, M. Durry, Les cohortes pre‘toriennes (Paris 1938) 180 n.5, S. N. Miller, ‘The Army and the
Imperial House’ in The Cambridge Ancient History XII. The Imperial Crisis and Rec0veryA.D. 193-
324, eds S. A. Adcock, M. P. Charlesworth, N. H. Baynes (hereafter CAH XII) (Cambridge 1939) 54,
and Arnheim, ‘Third-centurypraetorian prefects’ (above, n. 179) 86-88.
’15Eg. P.Gren$ I49,l. 9 of Geminius Chrestus. W. Ensslin, ‘The Senate and the Army’ in CAH XI1
(above, n.214) 61; compare: Stein, Prafekten (above, n.192) 126.
216 G. Bastianini, ‘La titolatura del prefetto d’Egjtto nella documentazione greca: precisioni di tipologia
formulare’ in Atti del XVII Congresso internazionale di papirologia (Napoli 19-26 maggio 1983)
(Naples 1984) 1335-40, at 1339 and ‘ E W X O Z AIITIIOT nel formulario dei documenti’,ANRW
11.10.1 (1988) 581-97, at 583 n.4.
217 Salway, ‘A fragment of Severan history’ (above, 11.202) 127-48.
218 Compare Lambrechts, Composition (above, n.169) 104-06, who argued that Honoratus was a
senator by birth.
Firstly, his name has now been read as the tribune of the cohors prima Aelia Dacorum on
one of a series of over twenty altars - of which only one is explicitly dated (to AD 237)2’9 -
dedicated to Jupiter by the unit and their officers at the fort at Birdoswald on Hadrian’s Wall:
‘[I(ovi) O(ptimo) M(aximo)] I [coh(ors) I] Ael(ia) [Dacolrum] c(ui) p(raeest) Do[mitlius
H]onor[atus] I tri[b(~nus)].’~~’ Given the date of his prefecture of Egypt, this post, which
occupies the second rung on the equestrian militia equestris, might be placed c. AD 200.221
In fact, Honoratus is not the only future praetorian prefect on record to have held a tribunate
in Britain early in his career.222Secondly, even more recently, Honoratus has been plausibly
detected, only slightly masked beneath Caracalla’s sacra nomina, as the vir egregius,
procurator Augustiprovinciae Arabiae, M. Aurelius Domitius Honoratus, who was honoured,
in conjunction with his wife, by a dedication at Ger!sa, which its editor has dated to some
time in the reign of Caracalla (AD 212/17).223The equestrian title vir egregius, borne by
Honoratus here, suggests that he had yet to receive the senatorial status credited to him on the
album of Canusium a few years later. The procuratorship of Arabia was, incidentally, a
position also held some time earlier by his fellow patronus, Didius Marinus, when also still
an equestrian, perhaps about fifteen years after his military experience.224Thus the dating of
Honoratus’ procuratorship of Arabia is also congruent with his being a tribune of an auxiliary
cohort in Britain c. AD 200.
Honoratus, it now seems, was someone who, following an established pattern Of career in
the service of the emperor, was of simple equestrian status under Caracalla but had acquired
senatorial status by means of ornamenta by 223, at least three years before being promoted
219 RIB 1875-96. No. 1875 is dated ‘[PerlpetuoI cos.’ (11.6-7), apparently a drastic abbreviation of the
consuls of AD 237: L. Marius Perpetuus, L. Mummius Felix Cornelianus.
22’RIB 1884; although read by F. J. Haverfield in 1896-7, it was sought in vain by R. P. Wright, editor
of RIB. Recently rediscovered by a workman, still in place at Birdoswald Farm, the fragmentarynomen
of the commanding tribune, originally considered ‘Octavius’, was re-read ‘Domitius’by R. S. 0.Tomlin,
‘RomanBritain in 1990.11, Inscriptions’, Britannia 22 (1991) 293-31 1, at 309-10=AE (1991) 1158.
221 Command of the cohors milliariae IAeliae Dacorum: second post in the careers of Ti. C1. Proculus
Cornelianus in A E (1956) 123 (Lambaesis, Numidia) and of the anonymousAE (1957) 113 (Lauriacum,
Noricum); see Devijver, PME I (above, n.172) 267-68, C 174 and I1 (n.169) 917, Inc. 55. It cannot be
excluded that Honoratus’ tribunate should be dated earlier because the traditional terminus post quem
of AD 197 for the deployment of these auxiliary units on Hadrian’s Wall is no longer certain: P. Salway,
Roman Britain (Oxford 1980) 221.
222 T. Furius Victorinus, praeJ:vigilum, prefect of Egypt and then praetorian prefect in the 160s under
M. Aurelius, began as tribunus cohortis III Bracarum in Britannia: PIR2F 584.
223 R. Haensch, ‘Ein Procurator der Provinz Arabia und die angeblichen Beinamen Aurelia Antoniniana
von Gerasa’, ZPE 95 (1993) 163-78, completing CIL I11 6043 + 141571 (= AE (1930) 97): ‘M.
Aurel(ium) Domi[tiu]m Honoratum v(irum) e(gregium) proc(uratorem) Aug(usti) I provinc(iae) Arabiae
et Aur(e1iam) Iul(iam) Heracliam con(iugem) I M. Aurel(ius) Rufus 7 (centurio) leg(ionis) 111
Ga[l(licae)] Antoninianae et Aur(e1ii) Longinus I et Capitolinus equites Romani fil(ii) eius honoris
causa.’ P. Le Roux in AE (1993) 1641: the epithet Antoniniana for Gerasa might equally apply to the
reign of Elagabalus, AD 218-222.
224 CIL I11 6753 = ILS 1396: since Marinus’ tribunate (of a praetorian cohort), he had held seven
procuratorial posts before that i n Arabia, suggesting a period of about fifteen years. Marinus’ career:
below, section 7.
to the praetorian prefecture, the office with which the award of senatorial ornamenta had been
traditionally most associated.22sComparison with the known careers of other holders of the
Egyptian and/or praetorian prefecture suggests that in 223 Honoratus may have held the
prefecture of either the annona (corn supply) or the vigiles (police) at Rome; for these posts
quite frequently preceded the prefecture of Egypt and/or the praetorian prefecture at
approximately this interval.22GThe award of senatorial ornamenta to such a prefect might
seem incredible but it does accord with the general inflation in equestrian titles (and
presumably salaries) observable in the preceding two decades. Four praefecti vigilurn between
the reigns of Septimius Severus and Macrinus are known to have been given the
eminentissimate, which was normally reserved for the praetorian prefects.227That this social
elevation might be further boosted by a grant of senatorial ornamenta is suggested by the
funerary epitaph of Q. Cerellius Apollinaris.228For here he is qualified as clarissimae
memoriae vir, although, as confirmed by the memorial itself, the last office he filled before
his death was the prefecture of the vigiles under C a r a ~ a l l aThe
. ~ ~appearance
~ of a clarissimate
praefectus vigilurn only a decade before the date of the album serves to reinforce the
hypothesis that in AD 223, two or three years before his prefecture of Egypt, Domitius
225 Omamenta generally confined to praetorian prefects according to Stein, Rom. Ritterstand (above,
n.169) 252, Passerini, Coorti pretorie (above, n.201) Ixv, Howe, Pretorian Prefect (above, n.89) 72,
and Pflaum, Marbre de Thorigny (above, n.94) 38-41.
226 Durry, Cohortes prktoriennes (above, n.214) 158-59. The sequence is seen in the careers of
T.Furius Victorinus in the 160s (PIR’ F 584: above, 11.222); M. Bassaeus Rufus, prae$ vigilum on 10
March 168, prae$ Aeg. 168/169, praetorian prefect by 6 July 177 (PIR’ B 69); ...atus, praeJ ann.,
praetorian prefect under Elagabalus (CIL VI 3839 = 31776); and Domitius Ulpianus,prae$ ann. 31
March 222, praetorian prefect 222-c. 224 (PIR2D 169; AE (1988) 1051).
227 Cn. Marcius Rustius Rufinus, praefectus vigilum eminentissirnusvir on 13 March 205 (AE (1946)
189) and also in 207 (CIL XIV 4381,4387); C. Iulius Quintillianus likewise on 4 April 21 1 (CIL XIV
4388), Q. Marcius Dioga c. 213/214 (CIL XIV 4389 = AE (1977) 154); and Valerius Titanianus in
217/218 (CIL XIV 4393). Inflation of honours and titles amongst the high equestrian officials of the
Severan period: F. Grosso, ‘Ricerche su Plauziano e gli avventimenti del suo tempo’, RAL 23 (1968)
7-58, at 24 11.97, H. Pavis d’Escurac, Le prkfecture de l’annone: service impkrial d’Auguste b
Constantin (Roma 1976)60-61, and M. CCbeillac-Gervasoniand F. Zevi, ‘Rkvisions et nouveautks pour
trois inscriptions d’Ostie’, MEFRA 88 (1976) 607-37, at 626 n.2.
228 J. M. Reynolds, ‘Q. Cerellius Apollinaris, Praefectus VigiIum in A.D. 212’, PBSR 30 (1962) 31-32
= AE (1969/70) 193: ‘[D(iis) M(anibus)]l Q. C[erelli Apo]llinaris c(1arissimae) m(emoriae) v(iri) I
praef(ecti) [vi]g(ilum) proc(uratoris) rat(ionum) privat(arum) I proc(uratoris) lud(i) m(agni) trib(uni)
coh(ortis)V pr(aetoriae) I et Cerelliae Veranillae c(1arissimae) m(emoriae) f(eminae) fil(iae) I et Aureliae
Veranillae c(1arissimae) m(emoriae) f(eminae) eius.’ M. Christol, ‘La cambre de Q. Cerellius
Apollinaris, prkfet des vigiles de Caracalla’ in Melanges d’histoire ancienne offerts b William Seston,
ed. J. Trkheux (Paris 1974) 119-26,at 126, proposed that his clarissimate rank was owed to ornumenta
consularia; he was followed by H.-G. Pflaum, Carritres procuratoriennes kquestres sous le Haut-
Empire romain, Supplkrnent (Paris 1982) 59-62, no. 237 A; but A. Chastagnol, Le sknat romain b
l’kpoque impkrial, Recherches sur la composition de 1’Asseinblke et le statut de ses membres (Paris
1992) 120, favours an adlection inter praetorios.
229 Apollinarispraefectus vigilum in AD 212: CIL VI 1063, PIR2 C 655.
Honoratus held either the prefecture of the vigiles or that of the a n n o n ~The .~~ known
~ (and
reasonably hypothesizable) facts of Honoratus’ career can now be summarized thus: tribunus
cohortis I Aeliae Dacorum in Britannia (c. 197/200), v. e. procurator provinciae Arabiae
(212/7), v. c. praefectus vigilumlannonae (223), praefectus Aegypti (226), praefectus
praetorio (226135).
Since it ?was the identification of Honoratus as prefect of Egypt in 222 and praetorian
prefect in 223 that was the lynchpin of Pflaum’s identification of the three individuals
sandwiched between him and App. Claudius Iulianus in the list of patroni of Canusium as also
being praetorian prefects, the postponement of Honoratus’ prefectures must now also put
theirs in doubt.231 According to the same logic by which Pflaum assigned a praetorian
prefecture to Didius Marinus on the strength of his immediately preceding Honoratus, the
close association of these two would suggest that Marinus may have held the other of the two
prefectures (of the annona or vigiles) not then held by Honoratus. As for Aedinius Iulianus,
there is no longer any compelling reason to assume that he had already vacated the post of
prefect of Egypt, in which he is attested in 223, by the time of the inscribing of the album. The
known stages of Iulianus’ career may now be summarized as: procurator Augusti et vice
praesidis agens provinciae Lugdunensis (c. 220), praefectus Aegypti (222-24) - with
senatorial ornamenta by 223 -, v. c. praefectus praetorio (224/35).232T. Lorenius Celsus
remains just as much an enigma as before. If Celsus is merely an equestrian with senatorial
ornamenta here, as the three below him now seem to have been, then his success in this
respect may have been the basis upon which L. Lorenius Crispinus was successful in gaining
the latusclavus and entry into the body proper, a pattern observable for earlier praetorian
prefects.233 So, of Pflaum’s four prefects on the album, three are demonstrably lesser
equestrian officials honoured with senatorial ornamenta. The status of the album of Canusium
as evidential support for Severus Alexander’s ‘reform’ of the prefecture thus evaporates.
230 Parallels from the known careers of other praefecti Aegypti might have suggested the possiblity that
in 223 Honoratus was one of the palatine secretaries (eg. a rationibus, ab epistulis, a libellis etc.) or
commanded the fleet at Misenum or Ravenna; but these same parallels suggest that such offices were
slightly too junior to qualify their holders for senatorial omamenta, even under the Severans: eg. PIR’
F 584, ILS 9002: T. Furius Victorinus, progressively trib. coh. Bracarum in Britannia, trib. leg. I1
Adiutricis, praef. alae Frontonianae, procurator XL Galliarum, proc. prov. Hispaniae citenoris, proc.
ludi magni, praefectus classis praetoriae Ravennatium, praef. cl. praet. Misenensium, proc. a rationibus,
praef. vigilum, praef. Aegypti (AD 159/60), praef. praet. (AD 160-66); and PIR’ M 576: Mevius
Honoratianus, prefect of Egypt in AD 232, now named as apraefectus classis by a diploma of AD 226
(AE (1988) 598).
231 Pflaum, Marbre de Thorigny (above, n.94) 39-40.
232 Compare PIR’ A 113: praefectus Aegypti (222-23), legatus Aug. prov. Lugd., praefectus praetorio
‘a. 238 vel paullo ante’; Pflaum, Carri2res I1 (above, n.92) 771-72, No 297: procurator prov. Lugd.
(220), praef. Aeg. (222-23), praef. praet. (July 223). As with Honoratus, Iulianus may have acquired
his senatorial ornamenta before his Egyptian prefecture; but his possession of five lictors (quinque-
fascalis) in Gaul more probably relates to his standing in for a governor pro praetore than to omamenta
praetoriu): Mommsen, ‘EpigraphischeAnalekten N. 20’ (above, n. 174) 228-29, Stein, ‘Le marbre de
Thorigny’ (above, n. 165) 2-4.
233 Eg.Sex. Cornelius Repentinus, praefectuspraetorio from AD 160, orn. cos. by AD 163 (PIR’ C
1428) and (? his son) Cornelius Repentinus, cos. suf. before AD 193 (PIR’ C 1427).
In general the recent additions to our knowledge of Honoratus’ career make better sense of
his position on the album relative to Aedinius Iulianus and Didius Marinus. For, as well as
being junior to Didius Marinus as procurator of Arabia (Marinus’ tenure having been c. AD
21 1/212),234Honoratus was Aedinius Iulianus’ junior by two or three years as prefect of
Egypt. This is consonant with his ranking below Iulianus on the album of Canusium three
years beforehand. The certain post-dating of the praetorian prefecture of Honoratus, and likely
post-dating of that of Iulianus, obviously also causes problems for Nicols’ hypothesis as to
the role of both Honoratus and his ‘colleagues’ as patroni to Canusium in 223. By itself this
new information does not immediately solve the mystery of their precedence over those
consulars and other full members of the Senate who rank below them on the album. It does,
however, suggest a new direction of enquiry.
6 Hierarchy
It is undoubtedly true, as Garnsey somewhat disingenuously said of the patroni and other
ranks on the album?3s that they are listed ‘in order of importance’. However, the specific
criterion of importance underlying the organization of the lists of the senatorial and equestrian
patroni is controversial. The determination of the criterion of organization is central to
understanding how the Canusini perceived their patroni in 223 generally and the prefects who
head the list in particular. Pflaum had argued that their precedence over the consular senators
but below App. Claudius Iulianus reflected the exalted position accorded to the praetorian
prefecture after the ‘reform’ of Severus Alexander. It is, of course, no longer possible to
maintain this view, whether one believes in the historicity of Alexander’s reform or not.
Silvestrini has declared that ‘it seems without doubt that the patroni are ordered according
to their rank and seniority in that rank’, on the basis that their arrangement is in conformity
with the general disposition of the names of the decurions on the album, and is rendered
immediately evident from the fundamental division between the senatorial and equestrian
p~troni.*’~ Indeed, given the principle of seniority of honor underlining the arrangement of
the decurions, even if Ulpian’s advice to the proconsul is not interpreted as covering this
section, it would be surprising if a similar principle did not govern the internal arrangement
of the categories of equestrian and senatorial patroni. Such is the general consensus.237
In the absence of indications to the contrary, it would seem simplest to presume that the
criterion applied would be one governing the relationship of the patroni to Canusium
specifically; that is, seniority by date of each individual’s co-optation as patronus, upon which
the quinquennales ought to have been reliably informed. This was suggested by Chastagnol
in relation to the senatorial patroni on the afba of both Canusium and Tham~gadi?’~ Although
234 Marinus’ career: below, section 7.

235 Garnsey, ‘Decline of the urban aristocracy’ (above, n.lO) 245.
236 Silvestrini in ERC I (above, n. 1) 49-50: ‘che i patroni siano ordinati second0 il rango e anzianith
nel rango non pare dubbio ...’
Pflaum, Marbre de Thorigny (above, n.94) 36; Chastagnol, Recherches sur I’HA (above, n.92) 48;
23’
Honor6, Ulpian (above, 11.80) 39-40,46.
238 Chastagnol, Recherches sur I’HA (above, n.92) 48, Album de Timgad (above, n.3) 24.
it yields interesting results, a comparative examination of the ranking of the equestrian

patroni, no fewer than five of whom also appear within the active ordo decurionum proper,239
cannot be entirely conclusive in this respect. We may correlate their relative positions
according to magisterial grade with their ranking as patroni thus:
P. GERELLANVS MODESTVS
T. LIGERIVS POSTVMINVS 1st quinquennalicius
T. MVNATIVS FELIX
T. FLAVIVS CROCALIANVS 1st aedilicius
C. GALBIVS SOTERIANVS 1st adlectus inter quinquennalicios
T. AELIVS RVFVS 4th quinquennalicius
T. AELIVS FLAVIANVS 5th quinquennalicius
Q. COELIVS SABINIANVS
Silvestrini has maintained that seniority in the local magistracies of Canusium plays a part in
the ranking of these equestrian patroni.240However, it is, at least, immediately apparent from
this that those equestrian patroni of local municipal origin (ie. those that have held magisterial
office at Canusium) have not been segregated from the outsiders (Gerellanus Modestus,
Munatius Felix, and Coelius Sabinianus)2d’and registered in relation to each other according
to their municipal seniority. For, while the ordering of those patroni who had performed all
the municipal offices (the quinquennalicii), with regard to each other, accords with their
municipal seniority, their sequence is interrupted by two locals who had not completed all the
offices of a municipal career: Flavius Crocalianus and Galbius Soterianus. Of these latter, the
position of Crocalianus at the head of the ex-aediles suggests that his progress on the
municipal ladder ceased a good while previous to AD 223. It is, therefore, a plausible
hypothesis that, by virtue of their achievement of the equestrian census (possession of estates
worth over €IS400,000), Crocalianus and Soterianus too were able to opt out of their curial
obligations and abandoned their municipal careers at a relatively early stage, perhaps in
favour of an imperial career. Alternatively, if his father had been an already eminent
equestrian, Crocalianus may have benefited from election to a magistracy and co-optation as
239 Here I agree with Harmand, Patronage sur les collectivith publiques (above, n.76) 244 - despite
his unfortunate carelessness in reporting the details - in identifying T. Flavius Crocalianus patronus
eq. R. (col. I, line 37) with the homonymous aedilicius (col. 111, line 1). Compare Garnsey, ‘Decline
of the urban aristocracy’ (above, n. 10) 244-45, and Silvestrini in ERC I (above, n. 1) 47-48, who prefer
to distinguish them.
240 Silvestrini inERC I (above, n.1) 48: ‘... come dimostra la disposizione dei patroni clarissimi viri
l’ordine seguito t quello di rango e, a parith di rango, I’anzianith di carica [an extremely problematic
statement in itself]; si ritiene dunque che il medesimo ordine sia stato rispettato anche tra i patroni di
rango equestre ...’. Thus, because T. Flavius Crocalianus precedes two quinquennalicii,she rejects
identity with the aedilicius.
An origin in Brundisium seems likely for Gerellanus Modestus and one in Beneventum for Munatius
Felix, but no obvious patriu can be determined for Coelius Sabinianus: Silvestrini in ERC I (above, n.1)
52-53.
patronus (as a result of hereditary patronage) at an exceptionally young age.242At any rate it
seems difficult to interpret local magisterial ranking as underlying in any way the ordering of
the equestrian patroni.
On the other hand, since the three non-locals (Modestus, Felix, and Sabinianus) are most
likely to have been co-opted only after administrative posts brought them into contact with
the Canusini, their sprinkling through the list suggests that it is not the external criterion of
grading according to equestrian salary (the nearest equivalent to the hierarchy of senatorial
magistracies) that underlies the ranking of the equestrian patroni. However, since it is also
perfectly possible that three quinquennalicii who separate the non-local patroni held offices
in the imperial equestrian service, ranking according to its grades cannot be entirely
discounted. Nevertheless, ranking according to seniority of co-optation is equally suitable to
the pattern of the equestrian patroni and, on balance, is preferable as an a priori assumption;
after all, this information would be much more obviously accessible to the quinquennales of
Canusium than the latest news of promotions in the emperor’s service. If this is plausibly so
for the equestrian patroni, why not also for the senatorial?
It has, however, long been held that the Canusini determined the order of the senatorial
patroni according to seniority, not by each individual’s co-optation as patronus, but by the
external criterion of honor conferred by senatorial ~ f f i c e - h o l d i n g It
. ~ is
~ ~undeniable that,
excluding our equestrian prefects, this hypothesis does not conflict with the known facts
concerning the careers of the senatorial patroni. The prime position of a man of such
indubitably long-standing consular status as App. Claudius Iulianus is no surprise.244The
twelfth place of the recent consul Bruttius Praesens (cos. 217), six places below M. Antonius
Balbus (known to have been praetorian legate of Cilicia about 20 years previously),245five
below M. Statius Longinus (consular legate of lower Moesia, possibly under Macrinus)246and
one above Bruttius Crispinus (a future ordinary consul of 224), is also in concord. Indeed,
it might be argued that, whether by seniority by date of co-optation as patronus or seniority
by senatorial office-holding, a roughly similar ranking would be produced since both are
likely to correlate approximately with age. However, were the criterion of ranking that which
governed precedence in the senate, it is implausible that Domitius Honoratus, Didius Marinus,
and Aedinius Iulianus should outrank M. Antonius Balbus. It is inconceivable, according to
x2Parallel: C. Curtilius Faustinus, the son of an equestrian, who pursued a magisterial career at Pagus
Fificulanus, having been adlected into the ordo decurionum at the age of four (CIL IX 3573 = ILS
2053). Certainly the demographic model of Dal Cason Patriarca, ‘Considerazioni demografiche’ (above,
n.46) 249, accords Crocalianus an age of thirty-nine in AD 223, compared with the forty-five years
accorded to his juniors as patroni, the ‘IT.Aelii Rufus and Flavianus.
243 Damadenus, Aes Redivivum (above, n.4) cap. xxi, 64, JardC, Sivdre Alexandre (above, 11.86) 123-25,
Barnes, ‘Who were the nobility’ (above, n.lO1) 448-49, Silvestrini in ERC I (above, n.1) 49-50, Nicols,
‘Prefects, patronage’, (above, n.101) 204.
2A4 Given that Marius Maximus, cos. I1 in AD 223, was suffect consul in 198/99, Iulianus, cos. I1 in AD
224, ought to have held his first (suffect)consulship c. AD 200: PZR’ C 901.
245 Legatus Augusti pro praetore of Cilicia c. 198/209: PIR2 A 817; B. E. Thomasson, Laterculi
Praesidum I (Goteborg 1984) col. 292, 31:21.
246His governorship is recorded on coinage from Nicopolis: PIR S 631; Thomasson, Laterculi
Pruesidum I (above, n. 245) col. I40,20: 1 13.
the normal rules of precedence obeyed in the curia, that men of relatively recent senatorial
membership should be considered superior to a senior ex-consul. Even if we follow
Modrzejewski and Zawadzki in preferring to think of the prefects as having benefited from
suffect consulship^^^^ this ought still to have placed them betwein Bruttius Praesens and his
cousin Crispinus, just as amongst the decurions proper the current quinquennales of AD 223
take the most junior positions in that ~ategory.’~’
In determining the plausibility of seniority by date of co-optation, the possible scenarios for
co-optation (as outlined in section 4 above) have to be considered in relation to each man. The
high placing of Honoratus and his fellows would imply a date of co-optation many years prior
to AD 223. In fact, on this basis, given the thirty-year plus time-span of the lists of decurions,
the co-optation of App. Claudius Iulianus ought to be placed in the 190s. For a man of such
unimpeachably aristocratic origins, this is not improbable in the light of the high probability
of the inheritance of the position of patronus from his forebears. Lack of information makes
the case of Lorenius Celsus undecideable. Aedinius Iulianus is a different matter. The rarity
of his nomen has been noted bef01-e.’~’Excluding Iulianus himself, epigraphic sources attest
no fewer than twenty-nine Aedinii from Africa?” four in Rome (one very probably of African
origin)”l and, significantly only three lone individuals otherwise in the entire empire, all from
Volcei in L ~ c a n i a . Thus,
~ ’ ~ although the overwhelming probability is that Iulianus’ origin lies
in Africa, an origin in South Italy, and thus co-optation from an early age, cannot be entirely
excluded.
On the other hand, Marinus and Honoratus are almost certainly from outside the peninsula.
On the basis that the Latin appearance of Marinus’ cognomen might be masking a semitic
etymology, Pflaum suggested an origin in Syria.”’ His ten known postings ranged across
eighteen different provinces, representing the full geographical spread of the empire, including
several posts in Italy.254The third of these, procurator vectigalior(um) populi Romani for Italy
247 Modrzejewski and Zawadzki, ‘La date de la mort d’Ulpien’ (above, n.lO1) and n.95; followed by
Chastagnol, Recherches sur 1”HA (above, n.92) 47-49, and Silvestrini in ERC I (above, n.1) 50.
Compare Chastagnol, Sknut romain (above, n.228) 120, where he lists Aedinius Iulianus, Didius
Marinus and Domitius Honoratus as having been adlected interpraetorios c. AD 222-23.
248 B. Rkmy, ‘Ornati et ornamenta quaestoria, praetoria et consularia sous le Haut Empire romain’, REA
78/79 (1976/77) 160-98, at 171, condemns the prefects’ ranking as ‘placementjuridiquement illogique’.
249 Above, section 5.
250 Twenty-six from the indices of CIL VIII, distributed widely through the contemporary provinces
of Proconsularis and Numidia, plus a further one from Utica in Proconsularis in AE (1969/70) 633, and
two from Setifis in Mauretania Caesariensis in AE (1922) 23 and (1972) 702.
251 Three from the indices of CIL VI, plus one from AE (1941) 71. An African origin is probable for
L. Aedinius Rogatus eques of the cohors VIpraetoriu (CIL VI 33682,l. I): Syme, ‘nDonatusm and the
like’, Historiu 27 (1978) 588-603.
252CIL X 8341-42 = InscrIt 111.1, 82-83: LL. Aedinii Pretiosi, father and son, and Aedinia Amanda.
Note also four Haedinii from the territory: ZnscrIt 111.1,21,74,77.
253 Pflaum, Carri2res I1 (above, n.92) 769, no. 295.
254 (1) Tribunus cohortis primae praetoriae (in Rome), (2) vir egregius procurator familiarum
gladiatoriarum per Asiam, Bithyniam, Cappadociam,Lyciam, Pamphyliam, Ciliciam, Cyprum, Pontum,
south of the river Po, would have provided an opportunity for his acquaintance wth the
Canusini. Although there is much uncertainty as to the average tenure of such equestrian
positions, it seems better to allow a spread of twenty-five years for ten posts, than squeeze them
into a fifteen-year span, as did P f l a ~ m . ~This
’ ~ would place the beginning of his career in the
last years of Commodus’ reign and his procuratorship of the vectigaliu in the mid 190s. By 223
then, his relationship with Canusium may have been of over twenty-five years’ standing, which
does not entirely conflict with his ranking in fourth place.
The cognomen of Honoratus is also strongly diagnostic of his origin. Like other names
ending in ‘-atus’, it is highly suggestive of an African origin and, although his nomen is too
common to allow any further speculation as to his antecedents,256two other LL. Domitii are
worth noting: L. Domitius Rogatus, another African who rose through the militia equestris to
serve as ab epistulis to Aelius Caesar c. AD 137,257and a later senator of Carthaginian
extraction, L. Domitius Gallicanus, who came to prominence during the events of AD 238.258
Given his likely overseas origin, none of the offices explicitly attested for Honoratus up to AD
223 offers an obvious opportunity for his co-optation by the Canusini. On the analogy of
Marinus, we might suppose an administrative post in the peninsula, which being of a relatively
junior status, might put the date of his co-optation up to twenty years in the past. Such a
hypothesis is again congruent with his position relative to Marinus in the list of putroni.
Thus individually the positions of Iulianus, Marinus and Honoratus cannot disprove a
ranking by seniority of co-optation. However, when viewed as a group, their presence seems
more anomalous. For it is difficult to imagine that Canusium would have formed links of
patronage with parvenus from overseas such as Didius Marinus and Domitius Honoratus
before doing so with the,Bruttii from neighbouring Lucania; a family which had been near the
centre of power for nearly a century, or other local senators such as the Statii, C. Betitius Pius,
C. Iunius Numidianus and L. Lucilius Pri~cilianus.~’~ It would, nevertheless, be contrary to
Paphlagoniam, (3) procurator vectigaliorum populi Romani quae sunt citra Padum, (4) procurator
alimentorum per Transpadum, Histriam et Liburniam, (5) procurator Minuciae (at Rome), (6) procurator
familiarum gladiatoriarum per Gallias, Britanniam, Hispanias, Germanias et Raetiam, (7) procurator
(Augustorum) provinciae Galatiae, (8) procurator Augusti provinciae Arabiae (9) procurator
Augustorum provinciae Asturiae et Gallaeciae (10) vir perfectissimus procurator Augusti provinciae
Asiae et a sacris cognitionibus. Posts 2 to 6 are of the grade sexagenarius (ie. salary of +I60,000
++per
annum), 7 to 9 are of the grade centenarius (ie. fff 100,000) and post 10 is ducenarius (ie. tff
200,000).
255 Tribunate c. AD 200 rather than 190: Pflaum, Curriires I1 (above, n.92) 765-67, no. 295, Devijver,
PME I1 (above, n.169) 323, D 8.
256
Syme, ‘((Donatus. and the like’ (above, 11.251) 588-603, especially 596, noted that 495 of his 666
examples of Honoratus are of African attestation. Haensch, ‘Ein Procurator der Provinz Arabia’ (above,
n.223) 176, prefers to place Honoratus’ origo at Prusias ad Hypium in Bithynia, where Marci and Lucii
Domitii are found amongst the leading families.
257 L. Domitius L.f. Quir. Rogatus: CZL VI 1607 = ZLS 1450, PZR’ D 160, Devijver, PME I (above,
n.172) D 31; on whom see Syme, ‘<<Donatus,, and the like’ (above, n.251) 593.
258 L. Domitius Gallicanus Papinianus: Hdn. 7.1 1.3-7, PZR2 D 148.
259 Political prominence of Bruttii: above, n. 163. Local connections of these purroni: Silvestrini in
ERC I (above, n. 1) 50-52.
BENET SALWAY: PREFECTS, PATRON!, AND DECURIONS 165
logic, considering the clearly defined rules governing ranking in the rest of the album, if the
arrangement of the patroni cc.vv. did not reflect a defined hierarchy.26n
7 The album’s hierarchy and the operation of patronage

It seems clear that, for the senatorial patroni at least, the hierarchy by which the Canusini have
ranked them cannot simply be that of seniority of co-optation as patronus nor that which
governed the membership of the senate. Pflaum was surely right when he said that their order
‘corresponds exactly to the rank each of them occupied in 223 in the imperial hierarchy.’261
An imperial hierarchy needs to be found that would encompass senators, praetorian, and lesser
equestrian prefects in a context relevant to the exercising of civic patronage. The emperor’s
consilium, a mixed entourage of advisers, ministers and secretaries that met as a consultative
forum on policy and cases brought to be heard before the emperor, would appear to be the
only obvious candidate.262
Writing to Tacitus on the subject of forensic oratory, the younger Pliny makes it clear that
the consilium was one of the three places in which he has been accustomed to exercise his
oratorical skills.263The emperor’s consilium was also a forum appropriate to the deciding of
matters concerning the rights and constitutions of Italian and provincial communities.
Moreover, while it always remained an ad hoc body whose precise composition varied
depending upon the proximity of suitable persons and the emperors’ own particular
predelictions, it is well known that it regularly comprised members of both the senatorial and
equestrian orders.za An inscription from the Picene town of Falerio (modern Fallerone)
demonstrates both of the latter aspects. It records that, when the Falerienses brought a dispute
with the neighbouring community of Firmum concerning the attribution of some ager sub-
secivus to the emperor Domitian at Albanum in July AD 82, the emperor heard the case with
260 A sentiment expressed by Pflaum, Marbre de Thorigny (above, n.94) 36: ‘... un regard sur les dif-
ferent rubriques nous demontre qu’il serait illogique de distinguer soigneusement les patroni clarissimi
viri des patroni equites Romani, etc. ..., si le mCme principe n’Ctait pas non plus observe h l’intkrieur
des different rubriques.’; echoed by Modrzejewski and Zawadzki, ‘La date de la mort d’Ulpien’ (above,
n.lO1) 595, Silvestrini in ERC I (above, n.1) 49-50, Nicols, ‘Prefects, patronage’, (above, n.lO1) 204.
261 Pflaum, Marbre de Thorigny (above, 11.94) 36: ‘... pour le tableau des patrons clarissimes, ..., l’ordre
des personnages correspond exactement au rang que chacun d’entre eux occupait en 223 dans la
hierarchic imperiale.’
262 Millar, Emperor (above, n. 143) 39.
263 Plin. ~ p 1.20.12.

.
264 Variability in composition and size of imperial consilium: Millar, Emperor (above, n.143) 119-22.
Imperial servants, praetorian prefects and heads of bureaux particularly prominent in the peripatetic
consilium:H. Halfmann, Itinera principum: Geschichte und Typologie der Kaiserreisen im romischen
Reich (Wiesbaden 1986) 103-10. Informal character reflected in the use of ‘amicus Augusti/Caesaris’
as a shorthand for attendance in the consilium:eg. in AE (1952) 6,ll. 13-19 (of 186/187)the consilium
of Commodus is listed as Acilius Glabrio consularis, Aur. Cleander a cubiculo, Aur. Larichus ab
epistulis Graecis, Iulius Candidus a rationibus and it is significant that the palatine officials are all also
qualified as amici before their post is given.
a consilium made up of illustrious men of both orders (ie. senatorial and equestrian).265As for
internal protocol, the Tabula Banasitana helpfully provides a ‘snapshot’ of the composition
of the consilium of the emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus on 6 July AD 177, in the
form of the signatories to a rescript granting Roman citizenship to the family of a Mauretanian
tribal chief. The list of twelve signatories begins with four ex-consuls, headed by M. Gavius
Squilla Gallicanus (cos. AD 150) and ending with P. Iulius Scapula Tertullus (cos. 160/166),
followed by an ex-equestrian now adlected to the Senate, T. Varius Clemens, then the current
praetorian prefects and praefecti annonae and vigilum, and finishes with two chiefs of
secretarial bureaux (principes ofJiciorum).2aThus, although the consilium was not a statutory
body, an internal hierarchy was observed, which is reflected by the order in which those
present witnessed the document at Banasa. This hierarchy was no doubt determined by the
order in which the opinion of each consiliarius was sought, reflecting their relative social
positions. It is significant, therefore, that, as noted by Barnes, under Caracalla the praetorian
prefects play such a prominent role compared with the situation of the Tabula B a n a ~ i t a n a . ~ ~ ~
They are listed first in the protocols of both the known proceedings before Caracalla,
preserved in the Codex Zustinianus and the inscriptions on the temple at Thelsea (Dmeir) in
Syria respectively.26x
The great honour paid to the praetorian prefects by the Severan emperors in comparison
also with their successors is suggested by the formulae of three sets of recorded prayers. The
first commemorates the activity of the priests of Dionysus at Histria in Moesia c. 219, while
the other two arose from the holding of games, made at Beroia by the Macedoniarch and High
Priest of the imperial cult on 25 June AD 229 and 240 respectively.?6YThe dedication of 219
opens with a prayer ‘to the well-being of M. Aurelius Antoninus (Elagabalus), Iulia Maesa,
the illustrious prefects of the most sacred praetorium, Valerius Comazon and Iulius Flavianus,
the sacred Senate and the sacred armies’. That of 229 opens with a prayer ‘for the health,
safety, victory and eternal duration of Severus Alexander, Iulia Mamaea, the whole of their
domus divina, the sacred Senate, the illustrious prefects, the sacred legions and the populus
Romanus’. That of 240, on the other hand, names, after M. Antonius Gordianus and the whole
of his domus divina, ‘the sacred Senate, the sacred legions, the populus Romanus and the
illustrious prefects of the sacred praetorium’. Thus, the praetorian prefects, who were
265 CIL I X 5420 Falerio (Regio V) = FIRA’ I 75, 11. 11-15: ‘Imp. Caesar divi Vespasiani f.
[[Domitianus]] I Aug. adhibitis utriusque ordinis splenldidis viris cognita causa inter Falelrienses et
Firmanos pronuntiavi quod I suscriptum est.’
266 IAM I1 242; W. Seston and M. Euzennat, ‘Un dossier de la chancellerie romaine: la Tabula Banas-
itana. Etude diplomatique’, CRAI (1971) 468-90, at 485-87; Millar, Emperor (above, n.143) 129-30.
267 Barnes, ‘Who were the nobility?’ (above, n.lO1) 448.
268CJ 9.5 1.1: ‘Imp. Antoninus A. cum salutatus ab Oclatinio Advent0 et Opellio Macrino praefectis
praetorio clarissimis viris, item amicis et principalibus officiorum et utriusque ordinis viris . . .’; AE
(1947) 182 = SEG XVII 759,ll. 2-6; ‘... Imp. Caes. M. Aurel. Antoninus pius fel. Aug. Par. max. Brit.
max. Germ. max. cum salutatus a praeff. pr. ee.vv. item amicis et principibus of(f)iciorum sedisset in
auditor(io) ...’
269 AE (1961) 86 = D. M. Pippidi, Inscrip$ile din Scythia Minor I (Bucharest 1983) 99 (first half of
219), AE (1971) 430 (25 June 229) and 431 (25 June 240). On the general inflation of equestrian
honours under Septimius Severus see above, section 5.
considered first after the imperial family (and actually cited by name) under Elagabalus and
third under Alexander, have been dropped to the last place under Gordian 111. Lest this
difference in ordering be dismissed as insignificant variation, two facts are worth considering.
Firstly, the Macedoniarchs especially, as High Priests of the imperial cult, might legitimately
be expected to be well informed on the contemporary official protocol for dedications of this
kind.270Secondly, the dates of the last two dedications are separated by the reign of
Maximinus, which, of course, culminated in AD 238 in a ‘show-down’ between the forces of
senatorial tradition and those of an emperor of equestrian origin that ended with the defeat of
the latter. In the aftermath of these events, a re-affirmation of the traditional social order
seems a reasonable hypothesis and would explain the relative decline in honour paid to the
praetorian prefects in comparison with the Severan period.27’
In the light of the above discussion, the appqent explanation for the prominent placement
of the praetorian and lesser prefects on the album of Canusium is that the quinquennales
followed the hierarchy current in Severus Alexander’s consilium. For the imperial consilium,
rather than the senate, was the arena in which these patroni were of particular ~ignificance.~~’
This confirms Pflaum’s view that people of Canusium were ‘en politiques a v i ~ C s ’ ;in~ ~ ~
considering the imperial consilium rather than the senate as the natural destination for their
diplomatic missions and showing awareness of its hierarchy in listing their patroni, they
acknowledged the true centre of decision-making power at Rome. It may also be that the
Canusini considered amici principis generally to outrank less favoured senators and thus
applied a doctrine similar to that deployed by Ravius Abinnaeus, who, in a petition addressed
to Constantius and Constans, asserted the superiority of his claim to the command of the ala
at Dionysias in the Thebaid over those who had obtained sacrae lirrerae of promotion per
suffragium, on the ground that his appointment was derived by the iudicio sacro of
Constantius in person.274This sounds very close to the principle expressed by [Ps.-] Ulpian,
in relation to the drawing up of an album decurionum, that holders of dignitates obtained
principis iudicio outranked those who had performed only honores m u n i c i p a l e ~Since
. ~ ~ ~the
270CompareAE(1971) 430,11.6-9: ‘... ~ a6lnkpi udpnavroc &fou o k o u a d t 6 v k p & uuv-

Khjzou K& zQv 6ialuqporoirwv Lnoipxov ~ ai ~i p Q urpateupoirov
v ~ a6.rjpou
i zQv ‘Popailov
.: with 431,4-6 ‘... ~ a6 id p rob I MOU
O ~ K O Ua6zob ~ ai ~i p h q
uuvlch.rjrou ~ ak pi Q v u t p a t ~ u -
pb‘COV K& 6.rjp[OU T6V ‘PopafoV 6l]CtCJTlpOTChV 6X6pXWV t O b i€pOfi TCpatTopiOu ...’
271 Compare the praefecti vigilum, regularly eminentissimi under the Severans (above, n.227), who
appear once again under Gordian 111 with the more modest ranking, virpe$ectissimus (CIL XIV 4398
of 241/2&), which the post retained until Constantine promoted it to senatorial status c. AD 325.
272 This urban prefecture, although traditionally reserved for elder senators, was not a regular senatorial
magistracy but rather a direct political appointment of the emperor. This point is illuminated by
Macrinus’ rewarding of Adventus, his erstwhile colleague in the praetorian prefecture, with the urban
prefecture in 217 before the latter had officially been enroled in the Senate; criticized by Cassius Dio
([Xiph.] 79[78]. 14.3).The urban prefecture was often accompanied by the comparatively rare honour
of a second consulship, as was the case with Marius Maximus, cos. I1 223, and App. C1. Iulianus, cos.
I1 224 Crook, Consilium Principis (above, 11.85)25 n.lO, 90.
273 Pflaum, Marbre de Thorigny (above, n.94) 40.
274 P.Abinn. 1 (AD 340/1), 11. 12-14.
275 [Ps.-] Ulp. Opiniones 2 (Dig. 50.3.2): quoted above, section 3.
higher prefectures were clearly so much more posts allotted by direct imperial decision than
senatorial magistracies (consulship, praetorship, etc.) and the pro-magisterial governorships,
the Canusini might even have been applying this criterion to decide precedence amongst their
senatorial patroni.
I propose, then, that the order of precedence of the imperial consilium remains the only
plausible basis for the placement of the leading clarissimate patroni. By combining external
evidence with the known offices of Aedinius Iulianus, Didius Marinus and Domitius
Honoratus in AD 223, its specific hierarchy might be reconstructed as: praefectus urbi,
praetorian prefects, prefect of Egypt (if and when present), praefecti annonae and vigilum
(with senatorial ornamentu), senatorial and then equestrian amici. On this basis, the
identifications of the patroni of Canusium may be summarised thus:
praefectus urbi AD 223, cos. 11 desig. 224

APP. CLAVDIVS IVLIANVS
T. LORENIVS CELSVS ? praefectus praetorio or ex-praef. urbi AD 223
M. AEDINIVS IVLIANVS praefectus Aegypti AD 223
L. DIDIVS MARINVS praefectus ? annonae AD 223
L. DOMITIVS HONORATVS praefectus ? vigilurn AD 223
followed by 26 senatorial patroni listed according to seniority by date of

co-optation.
With such a principle of ranking underlying the prominent placement of the urban prefect and
equestrian officials, their ranking cannot be used as evidence for the relative dates of their co-
optation. However, given what is known about the processes of co-optation,276it is unlikely
that all of the first five would have been co-opted precisely in AD 223. It is more likely that
their putrocinium was acquired at various different dates in the preceding two decades. The
knowledge that in 223 Didius Marinus probably was not, and Domitius Honoratus certainly
was not, praetorian prefect and that they may instead have been the prefects of the corn-supply
and nightwatch respectively is fatally damaging to Nicols’ hypothesis as to the nature of the
beneficium conferred by these men. It is hard to imagine how these Rome-based prefects
could exercise any direct military or judicial competence over Apulia, let alone Aedinius
Iulianus, if he remained prefect of Egypt throughout 223. For, while the prefectures that
Marinus and Honoratus may have held in 223 had acquired a judicial responsibility by the
Severan period, there is no evidence, nor any reason to suppose, that their competence would
have stretched beyond their natural confines of Rome and O ~ t i a . Thus
~ ’ ~ there is no basis on
which to support the conjecture of their supposed co-optation in order to take advantage of
juridical powers acquired (according to Pflaum’s identifications) in the very year of the
album. One or two of these prominent individuals may have been sought out recently through

277AE(1977) 171: T. Messius Extricatuspruefectus unlzonue ruled on the rights of the corporation of
saburrurii at Portus (17 September 210); CIL VI 266 = FIRA’ 111 165: case of the corporation of fullers
in Rome judged by the pruefecti vigilurn Aelius Florianus (PIR2176),Herennius Modestinus (PIR2H
112)-better known as the last ‘classical’jurist - and Faltonius Restitutianus (PIR2F 109) between AD
226 and 244. None of the excerpts from Paul and Ulpian that make up Dig. 1.15 (de officio pruefecti
vigilurn)hint at any jurisdiction beyond the confines of the city.
BENET SALWAY: PREFECTS, PATRON, AND DECURIONS 169
the agency of one or other of Canusium’s more lowly patroni but it is unnecessary to assume
that all four or five were. An incidental corollary of this is that Ulpian’s absence from the
album ceases to be a curious omission and cannot, therefore, be used as terminus ante quem
for the date of his murder. If he was still alive at the end of AD 223, his absence is simply a
reflection of the fact that Canusium had never had the opportunity or inclination to co-opt
him.
Nevertheless, assuming the Canusini were in a position to advance a claim, with the
opportunity afforded by the possession of what had matured by AD 223 into such an
improbably potent set of patroni, it is highly likely that they would have capitalized on their
unforeseen good fortune. Indeed, given its likely uniqueness, the inscribing of the album itself
is a clue to the kind of use to which they may have put their patroni. For the practical value
for Canusium of these prefects as patroni was their membership of the imperial entourage,
which afforded them access to the emperor’s ear and the opportunity for advocacy in his
presence.278As for the matter of their case, the kind of territorial dispute brought by Falerio
and Firmum to Domitian’s tribunal ought to be rejected as a possibility because this would
have no obvious connection with the album of decurions. Indeed, the failure to establish a
specific motive for the creation of the album itself was always the prime weakness of Nicols’
theory that the Canusini co-opted these imperial officials for their potential to restore order
( q ~ i e s )The
. ~ very
~ ~ act of inscribing the album in a durable medium suggests that the form
of any imperial benefaction secured was related to the constitution of the ordo itself. Given
that Canusium had already had a transformation of its magisterial structure by the change from
municipium to colonia under Antoninus Pius, any imperial indulgence that might have had
a bearing on the ordo decurionum is more likely to have concerned its size than its
constitutional structure (eg. in terms of the type and number of magistrates). The Canusine
elders may have sought an expansion of the council in proportion to an increase in the size
of the wealthier section of local society.280Imperial permission to expand the maximum
permitted number of decurions is, then, the most plausible hypothesis for the occasion of the
album’s inscription in bronze. This parallels the stimulus for the recording of the other
surviving album decurionum, that of Thamugadi, inscribed in response to Julian’s order that
clerici and oficiales be liable to curial service.281Moreover, in the list of its witnesses, the
text of an imperial grant would itself have provided the quinquennales with the basis for the
ranking of those of their patroni cc. vv. who had been present in the consilium. This is
certainly the kind of action in which the intervention before the emperor of powerful parroni
was a significant factor. Lavish honorific decrees and statues celebrated the success of the
prefect of Egypt, Minicius Italus, in extracting from Trajan a grant that extended the liability
of civic munera to resident aliens and that of the senator Fabius Severus in persuading
Antoninus Pius that the liability and opportunity for decurial service should be extended to
Talbert, Senate (above, 11.45)88 n.61, 161 n.2, #i propos of Fabius Severus’ patronage of Tergeste.
279 Nicols, ‘Prefects, patronage’, (above, n.101) 213-17 passim.
*” Likely economic prosperity: above, section 1.

the tribes in its territory.’*’ For as with the advantages granted to Aquileia and Tergeste,
permission to expand the ordo decurionum would have constituted a significant benefaction
in more than simply terms of honour. An increase in the number of decurions would have
obvious budgetary implications. Most immediatelyit would likely provide an injection of cash
by the increased number of entrance fees due to the public purse, not only on this occasion
but at every quinquennial revision of the membership - a benefit certainly worthy of
celebrati~n.’~~Moreover, since the quinquennules were instrumental in the taking of the local
census, the drawing up of the ordo and, most likely, in recruiting and approaching the putroni,
it is perhaps not surprising that they should wish to commemorate the results of their
handiwork, which was presumably most noticeable to local contemporariesin the expanded
number of pedani. Hence, the appearance of the names of M. Antonius Priscus and L. Annius
Secundus in such very prominent lettering at the head of the album is, I suggest, more than
simply fortuitous.
8 Conclusions
The album of Canusium is a unique document in ways that are simultaneously informativeand
tantalising. Its special status is indicated by the very choice to record the result of this
particular quinquennial lectio senatus in a permanent medium, and to preserve it thereafter.
With the contribution of fresh papyrological information, a reconsideration of the prosop-
ography of the patroni of the colonia of Canusium in 223 has yielded many and varied results,
with important implications for the historiography of the early years of the reign of Severus
Alexander, not least, by removing the only evidential support for the claim of the Historiu
Augusta that Alexander made his praetorian prefects members of the senate ex ofsicio.
However, concentration on this section of the album alone is not sufficient to offer a solution
to its mystery. It is to be remembered that the primary significance of the album was local. To
consider it a document illuminating contemporary political history at the imperial level is to
overlook the role that the album played in the life of the town and of the men who ordered its
inscribing on bronze. Thus, only by grounding a reassessment of Canusium’s patroni of AD
223 in a careful consideration of the role of the patronus civitatis in general and the nature
of the form, content and function of the list of regular decurions - that is, treating the album
as a single whole - has it been possible to offer a new perspective on the album.
The results of this approach have reaffirmed that advocacy rather than the exercise of
official authority was what was expected of the civic patronus and have demonstrated that the
ordo of Canusium, while not abnormal in structure, was certainly one of the largest attested
for imperial Italy. The enigmatic category of pedani has been identified as a product of an
expansion in decurial numbers. On this basis, I have argued that the album commemorates the
occasion of the special beneficium of an imperial grant permitting enlargement of the ordo,
which would probably account for a significant section of thepedani of 223. In obtaining this
benefit, the Canusini, represented by their quinquennales, were no doubt especially facilitated
by the good offices of the powerful subset of their patroni, who happened to comprise a
282 CIL V 875 (Aquileia) and CIL V 532 (Tergeste): further above, n.146.
283 Compare the success of Severus’ mission by which ‘et aerarium ditavit et curiam complev[it]’ (col.
11, 1.6).
significant proportion of the emperor’s senior officials. These are appropriately put at the
head of the list, reflecting their contemporary priority in the hierarchy recognized in the
imperial consilium, the forum where this matter would have come up for debate. As concerns
the imperial prefects, the album happens to provide a ‘snapshot’ of a passing situation; not the
early stages of a gradual development. For, after AD 238, such officials were not again
afforded an equivalent prominence in status until the Constantinian period. In short, in its
production and layout the album commemorates and demonstrates the results of the links
forged by this Italian community with the imperial centre. However, the most significant of
these links were not simply with Rome and the senatorial order but more specifically with the
imperial entourage.

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PREFECTS, PATRONZ, AND DECURIONS:

A NEW PERSPECTIVE ON THE ALBUM OF CANUSIUM

L * MARIO * MAXIM0 * n * L * R O S C I O * A E L I A N O - * cos -

T . LORENIV S CELSV S T'ANNAEV 5 RWV 5 C.ENNIV S MARCIAW 5 C. LVCRmV S VENVBN S IVN

M.AEDINIV S IVLIANV S L.ABVCCIV S PROCVLV 5 SEX.zPDIV S PnISCV 9 C.IVLIV S STACHV 5

TI . IVLlV 5 LICINIANV S 1IT.AELIV 5 ANTONIV 5

C.LVCRETN S VENVSTV S C.TEIENTN S PLlSClNV S M.CAVIV S RVW s

PATRONI. E . E Q Q R . R L.TRICCI~ s APOLLINARI s C.PeTICIV S DlONYSlV S QlVNlV S TROPHIMIANV S

. GERBLLANV S M.APRONIV S PRIMV 5 SEX. CALPVRNIVS AEMILIANV S 4OT.FUVIV S SlLVlNV S

The municipium: F. Grelle, ‘Canosa. Le istituzioni, la societk‘, in Societh romana e produzione

ULPIANUS LlBRO TERTIO DE OWICIO Ulpian, de officio pkoconsulis, book 3.

magistracies comprised a college of However, the relative proportions in each of the

42 Annual pairs of quaestors at the Sullan colonia of

45 R. J. A. Talbert, The senute of imperial Rome (Princeton 1984) 11-15.

PAULUS LIBRO PRIM0 [Ps.-] Paulus, Sententiae, book 1. He

75 Lex Irnitana, title 86 (Tab. IX, col. B, 11 42-49).

IDEM LIBRO SECUNDO OPINIONUM. Idem [Ps.-Ulpian], Opiniones, book 2.

APP. CLAVDIVS IVLIANVS praefectus urbi, cos. I1 desig.

Prosopographia Imperii Rumani).’” Indeed, Joseph M61Bze-Modrzejewski and Tadeusz

R. Syme, ‘Threejurists’, in Bonner Historia-Augusta-Colloquium1968/9,ed. J. Straub (Bonn 1970)

'07 Nicols, 'Prefects, patronage', (above, n.lO1) 201-17, especially 215-16.

147 Warmington, ‘Municipal patrons’ (above, n.142) 52-53.

Duncan-Jones, ‘Patronageand city privileges (above, n. 141) 15.

description of the governorship (datable to c. 220) by the senatorial title legatus A u g u ~ t i , ’ ~ ~

208 Content kindly communicated to me by Dr J. R. Rea of the Ashmolean Museum.

M. Aurelius Epagathus 26 May124 June 224 P.0xy. XXXI 2565,6

234 Marinus’ career: below, section 7.

it yields interesting results, a comparative examination of the ranking of the equestrian

7 The album’s hierarchy and the operation of patronage

263 Plin. ~ p 1.20.12.

270CompareAE(1971) 430,11.6-9: ‘... ~ a6lnkpi udpnavroc &fou o k o u a d t 6 v k p & uuv-

praefectus urbi AD 223, cos. 11 desig. 224

followed by 26 senatorial patroni listed according to seniority by date of

276 Above, section 4.

*” Likely economic prosperity: above, section 1.

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