Fragmentary inscription in honour of a tetrarchic Caesar (Maximinus Daia?) from Perinthus Heraclea by a praet. prefect
source date: 307/308 AD
edition published: 2020-08-21
availability: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/)

a) Transcription from the manuscript of the “Commentaria” by Ciriaco de’ Pizzicolli (cod. Vat. Lat. 5250, f.° 3r)

Diis auctoribus ad rei publicae amplificandae gloriam procreato pi n(ost)ro iovio maximo ti nobilissimo Caesari VS vcm praef. praetor.

b) Edition from CIL III, 12326

DIIS ⋅ AVCTORIBVS AD ⋅ REI ⋅ PVBLICAE ⋅ AMPLIFICANDAE GLORIAM PROCREATO PI //////////////////////// NOSTRO IOVIO MAXIMO /////////////////////////////// TI NOBILISSIMO CAESARI ////////// VS V ⋅ eM ⋅ PRAEF ⋅ PRAETOR

c) Reconstruction by Porena 2021

Diis auctoribus ad rei publicae amplificandae gloriam procreato piissimo domino nostro Iovio et nobilissimo Caesari us vir eminentissimus praefectus praetorio devotus numini maiestatique eius

See below.

[^1] “By the authority of the gods generated and destined to the glory of expanding the empire, to the most pious our master Iovius, Galerius Valerius Maximinus, [most victorious ?] and most noble Caesar, [- - -]us, praetorian prefect of eminentissimus rank, devoted to his divine spirit and majesty.”

[^1: Text c]

[^2] “Par l’autorité des dieux engendré et destiné à la gloire de l’expansion de l’empire, au très pieux seigneur notre Jovien, Galerius Valerius Maximinus, [très victorieux ?] et très noble César, [- - -]us, le très éminent préfet du prétoire, dévoué à sa divinité et à sa majesté.”

[^2: Texte c]

[^3] “Per l’autorità degli dèi generato e destinato alla gloria di espandere l’impero, al piissimo signore nostro Giovio, Galerius Valerius Maximinus, [vittoriosissimo ?] e nobilissimo Cesare, [- - -]us eminentissimo prefetto del pretorio devoto al nume e alla maestà sua.”

[^3: Testo c]

The fragmentary inscription in Latin from the city of Perinthus-Heraclea (Marmara Ereğlisi, Turkey; cf. Sayar 1998) is dedicated by a praetorian prefect to a Caesar, whose epithet is Iovius. The monument dates to the tetrarchic or post-tetrarchic age, 293-324 AD. The inscription was executed between March 293 AD and the end of 309 AD, or between March 317 AD and the end of 324 AD, since we know that the Caesars Iovii were only active in these two periods (cf. also U. Gehn in LSA 1125).

The original inscription is lost. The only transcription to come down to us was made by the Italian merchant and traveller Ciriaco Pizzicolli (1391-1452) in July 1444, while he was ambling among the ruins of the ancient city. The text was inserted by Ciriaco into his commentaria of the journey through Thrace, Propontis and Samothrace in the second half of 1444 (cf. Bodmer, Mitchell 1976). By 1514, the original manuscript was already lost, but this section of the commentaria was transcribed in a 16th Century manuscript – Vat. Lat. 5250, f. 3r – by an unknown copyist, probably taken from a copy of Ciriaco Pizzicolli’s original commentaria, or from one of the many manuscripts derived from the traveller’s work. Ciriaco states that he was copying the inscription from a marble base, but says nothing about the size of the base, shape and size of the letters, nor about its location among the ancient buildings. In the second half of the 19th Century, when Mommsen, Hirschfeld and von Domaszewski were working on the edition of CIL III, the inscription was already lost. In 1888, G.B. De Rossi published the transcription from Vat. Lat. 5250, f. 3r: this transcription, the only one remaining, does not follow the layout of the original Latin inscription, and contains several lacunae. So Dessau in 1892 (ILS 0665) and Mommsen in 1902 (CIL 03, 12326) tried to reconstruct the layout of the text. The examination of the surviving words of the inscription as it was copied by Pizzicolli makes it possible to provide a new reconstructive hypothesis of the honorary inscription. The key-elements are:

a) the recipient of the honorary inscription is one single Caesar, as shown by the use of the singular (procreato, nostro, Iovio, and above all nobilissimo Caesari); Dessau thought that the inscription was dedicated to an Augustus and a Caesar, but significantly he did not attempt to integrate the surviving text; an inscription in honour of both an Augustus and a Caesar is very rare (see Porena 2021), and the use of the singular for the honoured Caesar is decisive in concluding that our monument with its inscription was made for only one Tetrarchic Caesar;

b) this Caesar held the epithet Iovius, followed by a term transcribed as maximo, which is placed after the Caesar’s eulogy and after the formula dominus noster, and before the title nobilissimus Caesar: the word maximo occupies the space where the honoured Caesar’s name was;

c) the dedicant is a single praetorian prefect eminentissimus;

d) the final part contains the usual formula of devotion;

e) the long initial praise and the titulature of the Caesar, as well as the rank and the titulature of the high official – chiselled by means of a few abbreviations – are easily discernible, but the names of the two figures were not read by Ciriaco; the names of the Caesar and of the praetorian prefect are missing, in all probability erased (so already De Rossi 1888 and Dessau, commentary to ILS 0665).

The most important item of the transcription by Pizzicolli (or by a copyist of his work) is the sequence of the words Iovio and maximo, followed by a space without writing. The Iovius maximus nexus is never attested. The attribute maximus in our inscription cannot refer to a surname of victory (because no evidence of the ethnic name was on the stone), neither to the office of Pontifex, nor to other attributes; finally no tetrarchic Caesar held the epithet maximus. One plausible hypothesis is that the adjective maximo of the manuscript Vat. Lat. 5250, isolated in a single line in Pizzicolli’s transcription, could hide a bad reading of the cognomen of the Caesar Iovius: MAXIMIANO, that is Galerius, or MAXIMINO, that is Maximinus Daia. It is possible that the rubbing out of the Caesar’s name led Ciriaco to read maximo an adjective: ⟦Maxim[ian]o⟧, or ⟦Maxim[in]o⟧. It is likely that the maximo = ⟦Maxim[in]o⟧ was preceded by the names Galerio and Valerio. Should this indeed be the case, then four elements plead for Maximinus Daia being the most plausible solution:

a) the cognomen Maximino paleographically comes closer to maximo than the cognomen Maximiano;

b) Perinthus-Heraclea is located on the European coast of the Marmara Sea, an area that passed under the control of Licinius Augustus in the spring of 311 AD. During the war against Maximinus Daia in early 313 AD, the whole area was much fought. If, as hypothesized, the difficulty in reading the names of the recipient and the dedicator on the stone in question was the result of an erasure, this could be the effect of Licinius’ reprisal against the monuments in honour of Maximinus Daia, by then defeated, and indeed against the prefect who had put them up;

c) the absolute ablative Diis auctoribus is unique, and never recurs elsewhere in Latin epigraphy. In the tetrarchical ideology, Diocletian and Maximian are generated by the highest divinities (Jupiter and Hercules) and are creators of divinities, auctores of the Caesars (Marotta 2007; Cecconi 2018; Kolb 2018). The concept is exalted in the inscriptions of the Greek-speaking areas during the first and second Tetrarchy. The Caesar is pi[issimus]: the eulogy and the pietas of the Caesar reflects the tetrarchic religious atmosphere in which our Caesar Iovius is exalted for his mission to expand the imperium with arms and for his total submission to the will of the Augusti Iovii. From the end of 306 AD, Galerius had witnessed the disobedience of Constantine and Maxentius and the assassination of Severus Augustus: the tetrarchic system had gone into crisis because of the revolt of the young sons of the Tetrarchs. In Thrace, in the pars of the Iovius Galerius, Maximinus Daia was the only Caesar devoted to the tetrarchic system defended by the senior Augustus. The praetorian prefect of Galerius could exalt the obedience of Maximinus Daia during the crisis of the late 306/late 309 AD (in 310 AD Maximinus Daia became Augustus);

d) during the period 284-324 AD, each Augustus had only one praetorian prefect flanking him: when peace reigned between the Augusti, the praetorian prefects formed a united prefectural college as a manifestation of the unity of the res publica, mirroring the unity of the imperial college and the consular pair (see PPRET 01, 02, 03, 08, 09, 16, 17, 18, 22, 23; cf. Feissel 1991). When the solidarity between the Augusti disappeared, only the single praetorian prefect of each Augustus could erect a monument in honour of his Augustus or possibly his Caesar in the region, directly under his master’s sole control (for an honorary inscription to Maxentius Augustus of the imperial college by his sole one praetorian prefect see PPRET 04, 05; for a dedication to Constantine, cited as only Augustus see PPRET 12, 13). The honorary inscription for a Caesar Iovius in Thrace by a single praetorian prefect is limited to a short chronological period.

The anonymous praetorian prefect who commissioned the Perinthus-Heraclea monument was vir eminentissimus. Whatever his identity, it seems highly likely that he was in office in the Eastern and Illyrian area, the pars of the Iovii, before January 310 AD, since from that moment on, Tatius Andronicus and Pompeius Probus, the prefects of Galerius and Licinius Augusti, were active in the region (PLRE I, Andronicus 7, p. 66 and Probus 6, p. 740). The two equites were promoted to the senatorial order via the ordinary consulate of 310 AD and thus became viri clarissimi, whereupon they united to form a prefectural college (CLRE, pp. 154-155). Moreover in the first half of 310 AD, the last tetrarchic Caesar, Maximinus Daia, was also acclaimed Augustus by his troops and recognized by Galerius: the monument seen by Pizzicolli on the Straits was executed before the end of 309 AD. The studies of A. Stefan (2004, 2005, 2006) and S. Corcoran (2006) have shown that from the months immediately following the elevation of Licinius to Augustus at Carnuntum by Galerius and Diocletian on November 11th 308 AD, there was a change. Henceforth, the two Caesars of the imperial college imposed by Galerius, Maximinus Daia and Constantine, had the title filii Augustorum (always plural), and were no longer referred to as nobilissimus Caesar. The inscription of Perinthus-Heraclea, made in Galerius’ pars, celebrates a nobilissimus Caesar, and it must be prior to the imposition of the title filius Augustorum at the beginning of 309 AD for the Caesars of the ‘fourth Tetrarchy’. Finally, the isolation of the praetorian prefect outside a prefectural college cannot concern the period of the ‘second’ and ‘third Tetrarchy’ (from May 1st 305 AD to September 307 AD), when at least two Augusti had nominated prefects (Constantius I and Galerius, Galerius and Severus), but the phase of the ‘crisis of the third Tetrarchy’ between September 307 AD (assassination of Severus Augustus) and November 11th 308 AD (Licinius is Augustus), when unity in the imperial and in the praefectural college ceased. In this phase, the imperial and prefectural college, under the aegis of the Iovii was set up by Galerius Augustus and Maximinus Daia nobilissimus Caesar, flanked by the sole praetorian prefect of Galerius. The honorary inscription by only one prefect, a vir eminentissimus, in Galerius’ pars may have been made when Maximinus Daia was nobilissimus Caesar between the end of 307 AD (after the death of Severus Augustus in September) and the end of 308 AD (before 11th November).

It is difficult to identify the praetorian prefect, whose name only the desinence -us survives. Three prefects are known in the East in 306/310 AD: Flaccinus (Porena 2003, pp. 194-213), Tatius Andronicus and Pompeius Probus (Porena 2003, pp. 189-194). All three could be Galerius Augustus’ praetorian prefects. In this ‘puzzle’ Flaccinus was in office in 305/306 AD and he may well have been the man behind the Perinthus-Heraclea inscription in 307/308 AD, although he could have been replaced by Andronicus between 306 and 307 AD. The order of enumeration of the two prefects-consuls of 310 AD makes it less likely that in 307/308 AD the prefect-awarder is Pompeius Probus, appointed after Andronicus.

De Rossi 1888, p. 369, nt. 4 ILS 0665 CIL 03, 12326 Porena 2021

EDCS 31200897 EDCS 31300267 EDH 068273 LSA 1125 TM 619676 TM 495338

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v(ir) em(inentissimus)

praef(ectus) praetor[io]