Inscription in honour of the praet. prefect C. Caelius Saturninus signo Dogmatius from Rome by his son
source date: 334/336 AD
edition published: 2020-06-15
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/)

Caio Caelio Saturnino, viro clarissimo, praefecto praetorio, Caius Caelius Urbanus, vir clarissimus, consularis, patri.

This edition in based on CIL 06, 01705. Seen by P. Porena in 2003.

“To C. Caelius Saturninus, praetorian prefect of clarissimus rank, C. Caelius Urbanus, of clarissimus rank and consular, to his father.”

“À C. Caelius Saturninus, clarissime préfet du prétoire, C. Caelius Urbanus, clarissime consulaire, à son père.”

“Al chiarissimo prefetto del pretorio C. Caelius Saturninus, C. Caelius Urbanus, consolare chiarissimo, al padre.”

The inscribed statue base was found in 1856 in the foundations of Piazza della Pilotta at the foot of the Quirinal Hill in Rome, along with a second base, which presents a longer inscription and a statue on it (CIL 06, 01704, see below). All the four faces of our block are framed on each side by a smooth fillet. The base is also broken at the back and damaged on the upper right angle, while the upper side is rough and chiselled away. This support originally was the baseboard of an unfinished plinth or a funerary altar.

Both bases were in situ and were dedicated to the same C. Caelius Saturninus signo Dogmatius (PLRE I, Saturninus 9, p. 806; Delmaire 1989, pp. 19-21), by his son C. Flavius Caelius Urbanus (PLRE I, Urbanus 4, p. 983; cf. Wueste 2016, p. 106). Our inscription (CIL 06, 01705) is noticeably brief, listing only the single office of praetorian prefect, but the other one (CIL 06, 01704 (p. 4739) = ILS 1214 = Di Stefano Manzella, Orlandi 1997, p. 267 = LSA 1266 and LSA 903 = EDR 127936) shows the entire cursus of Dogmatius performed before the praetorian prefecture (from the most recent appointment to the oldest one):

Dogmatii // honori / C(aio) Caelio Saturnino v(iro) c(larissimo), / allecto petitu senatus inter / consulares, comiti d(omini) n(ostri) Constantini /5 Victoris Aug(usti), vicario praefecturae / urbis iudici sacrarum cog(nitionum), vicario / praeff(ectorum) praetorio bis, in urbe Roma / et per Mysias, examinatori per Ita/liam, praefecto annon(a)e urbis, ratio/10nali privat(a)e, vicario summae rei / rationum, rationali vicario per / Gallias, magistro censum, vicario / a consiliis sacris, magistro stu/diorum, magistro libellorum, duce/15nario a consiliis, sexag(enario) a consiliis / sacris, sexag(enario) studiorum adiutori, / fisci advocato per Italiam, / C(aius) Fl(avius) Caelius Urbanus v(ir) c(larissimus), / consularis, patri.

This is the only complete equestrian cursus known between the Tetrarchic and Constantinian ages. It was studied again by P. Porena, who proposed the following chronology (Porena 2006a, pp. 1351-1358, 1370-1375; 2006b, pp. 334-337; 2018, pp. 89-92): a) under Maximianus Herculius Aug. at Milan (295-305 AD): fisci adv. per Italiam, sexag. stud. adiutor (LX), sexag. a consiliis sacris, ducen. a consiliis (CC); b) under Constantius I Aug. then under Constantine I Aug. at Trier (306-312 AD): mag. libellorum (CCC ?), mag. studiorum, vic. a cons. sacris (suppl. as mag. stud.), mag. censum, rationalis vicarius per Gallias (suppl. as mag. cens.), vicarius summae rei rat. (suppl. as mag. cens.), rat. privatae; c) after the victory of the Milvian Bridge (Oct. 312 AD): praef. ann. urbis (313/315 AD), exam. per Italiam (as praef. ann.), vic. praeff. praet. in urbe Roma (314/317 AD), vic. praef. urbis i.s.c. (for a short period as vic. in urbe); after the victory of Cibalae and Campus Ardiensis (Oct. 316 - Mar. 317 AD): vic. praeff. praet. per Mysias (317/319 or 320/324 AD); d) after the victory of Hadrianopolis and Chrysopolis (Jul./Sept. 324 AD) comes Constantini Victoris, allectus petitu senatus inter consulares (326/330 AD). After Dogmatius’ access to the senatorial order there was a pause: his career seemed to be over, and the first honorary monument was built (CIL 06, 01704). But Constantine appointed the senator praetorian prefect. Since Dogmatius is not listed among the prefects on the arch of Aïn Rchine of 332 AD (PPRET 16) nor among the prefects on the inscriptions of Tubernuc and Antioch of 335/336 AD (PPRET 17 and 18), his prefecture ought to date to the period 333/335 AD. When Dogmatius was appointed prefect, his son Urbanus erected the second monument to his father, in which the now elderly dignitary was represented as a praetorian prefect (our CIL 06, 01705).

On the first base, Dogmatius was portrayed as a togatus. This famous statue is now in the Vatican Museum (Museo Gregoriano Profano, inv. 10493-10494; see Gehn 2012a, pp. 498-504; LSA 903). On the second base, he was probably portrayed (in a lost statue) with the military attributes of the praetorian prefects. As Wueste (2016, p. 106) assumes, since the praetorian prefecture, his higher post, is the only office mentioned in our inscription and it is not listed in the first longer one, we can presume that the monument was made for Dogmatius’s appointment to the praetorian prefecture, probably in 333 AD.

Silvia Orlandi argued that the two bases were located in the Porticus Constantini, in a public space (Di Stefano Manzella, Orlandi 1997, p. 268). But it seems more probable that the two dedications made by Urbanus come from the private space of his/their domus. Some archival documents recently studied by Montalbano and Avagliano (2014, pp. 62-66) relating to this archaeological area on the Quirinal hill, confirm the identification of the domus, as Guidobaldi already proposed (see Guidobaldi 1995, p. 174). According to Gehn, these monuments were probably placed in a reception area of the house, where they would have been visible to other members of their class and from whom they sought consensus (Gehn 2012b, pp. 28-30; cf. Machado 2019, pp. 139-141). Late antique senatorial honorary statues were status-symbols and were very common in the late Roman domus.

Our prefect, an eques trained in law, financial administration and bureaucracy, ascended socially and gained visibility thanks to his prestigious appointments in Rome, Italy and Illyricum. He bought or rebuilt a domus in Rome with the money acquired through his bureaucratic service. His domus certainly represents a sign of social status of the new senator in the capital, a reward for loyalty shown in such a long career, welcomed by the Senate. That said, no other inscriptions of Dogmatius have come down to us, except those erected by his son in their domus. He is a bureaucrat on the rise, still extraneous to the aristocracy; his social climbing seems more than anything to have benefited the next generation, since the career of his son (vir consularis) was probably propitiated by his father’s achievements.

Mommsen 1865, p. 300 CIL 06, 01389 = CIL 06, 01705 = CIL 06, 31642 = CIL 06, 31905 (cf. p. 4739) Cuq 1881, p. 5 ILS 1215 Delmaire 1989, p. 21 Wueste 2016, pp. 105-106

EDR 127938

EDCS 17900065 EDR 127938 LSA 1412 TM 281625

Cuq E., De quelques inscriptions relatives à l’administration de Dioclétien (I. L'examinator per Italiam), Paris 1881, 1-74 Delmaire R., Les responsables des finances impériales au Bas-Empire romain (IVe-VIe s.). Études prosopographiques, Bruxelles 1989 Di Stefano Manzella I., Orlandi S., Dedica onoraria e carriera di Caius Caelius Saturninus, in Di Stefano Manzella I. (a cura di), Le iscrizioni dei cristiani in Vaticano. Materiali e contributi scientifici per una mostra epigrafica, Città del Vaticano 1997, 267-269 Gehn U., Ehrenstatuen in der Spätantike. Chlamydati und Togati, Wiesbaden 2012 (a) Gehn U., Ehrenstatuen in spätantiken Häusern Roms, in Birk. S., Poulsen B. (eds.), Patrons and Viewers in Late Antiquity, Aarhus 2012 (b), 15-30 Guidobaldi F., Domus: Caelius Saturninus s. Dogmatius (Honorius), in Steinby E.M. (ed.), Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, vol. II, Roma 1995, 174 Machado C., Urban Space and Aristocratic Power in Late Antique Rome: AD 270-535, Oxford 2019 Mommsen T., De C. Caelii Saturnini titulo, Nuove Memorie dell’Instituto di corrispondenza Archeologica, 2, 1865, 298-332 Montalbano R., Avagliano A., La cosiddetta domus Caeliorum in piazza della Pilotta. Testimonianze d’archivio inedite sui ritrovamenti, StudRom, 62, 2014, 51-70 Porena P., Sulla genesi degli spazi amministrativi dell’Italia tardoantica, in Labruna L. (dir.), Baccari M.P., Cascione C. (a cura di), Tradizione romanistica e Costituzione, vol. II, Napoli 2006 (a), 1315-1376 Porena P., Trasformazioni istituzionali e assetti sociali: i prefetti del pretorio tra III e IV secolo, in Lizzi Testa R. (a cura di), Le trasformazioni delle élites in età tardoantica, Roma 2006 (b), 334-354 Porena P., L’amministrazione palatina di Diocleziano e dei tetrarchi. Comitatus, consilium, consistorium, in Eck W., Puliatti S. (a cura di), Diocleziano: la frontiera giuridica dell’impero, Pavia 2018, 63-110 Tantillo I., Memmius Vitrasius Orfitus, signo Honorius?, ZPE, 190, 2014, 271-278 (= AE 2014, 272) Wueste E.A., Politics and Religion in Late Antique Honorific Monuments: Portrait Heads, Statues, and Inscriptions of the Administrative Elite, PhD Diss. University of California, Berkeley 2016

- his son

v(ir) c(larissimus)

praefecto praetorio