Greek inscription in elegiac distichs honouring the praet. prefect or the vicarius Aphthonius from Gortyna (Crete) by (the consularis ?) Aristides
source date: 376/377 AD
edition published: 2021-11-08
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/)

[^1] Ἀντίον ἀχράντοιο Δίκης | τὸν ἄχραντον ὕπαρχον |[^2] δῖος Ἀριστείδης | ἵδρυσεν Ἀφθόνιον, |[^3] πειθόμενος ψήφῳ λογάδων | καὶ δόγματι βουλῆς, |[^4] πολλῶν ἀντ’ ἀγαθῶν | μικρὰ χαριζόμενος.

[^1: 1-2 Verse 1]

[^2: 3-4 Verse 2]

[^3: 5-6 Verse 3]

[^4: 7-8 Verse 4]

Edition based on Vallarino 2012.

(Sironen 1997, p. 70)

“In the face of pure Justice the illustrious Aristeides erected (the statue of) the pure hyparchos Aphthonios, fulfilling the vow of the notables and the decision of the city-council, rewarding with a small gratitude in exchange for so many meritorious achievements”.

“Face à la Justice pure, l’illustre Aristéide a érigé (la statue de) l’hyparchos le pur Aphthonios, accomplissant le vœu des notables et la décision de la curie, lui rendant par une petite gratitude tant de mérites”.

(Vallarino 2012, p. 59)

“Di fronte alla pura Giustizia l’illustre Aristeides ha eretto (la statua del) puro hyparchos Aphthonios, adempiendo al voto dei notabili e alla decisione della curia, rendendo ben poca riconoscenza a fronte di tante benemerenze”.

In 2005, a team of archaeologists from ‘La Sapienza’ University of Rome, Bari Polytechnic University and the University of Bologna, coordinated by the Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene and led by the italian archaeologist E. Lippolis (1956-2018), found the inscribed column drum in the ‘Hellenistic building’ in front of the entrance and vestibule of the apsidal hall of the Praetorium of Gortyna, on the North side of the North Street (see Baldini, Lippolis, Livadiotti, Rocco 2005, p. 639; Vallarino 2012, p. 60, fig. 1; Baldini, Vallarino 2013, p. 106, fig. 4, p. 109, fig. 5; Vallarino, Cosentino, Dal Basso 2019, pp. 55-56; Baldini, Interdonato, Borlenghi, Lamanna 2019, p. 435). The inscribed column drum was reused as a bench, but the text of the inscription states that it supported the statue of the ὕπαρχος Aphthonius «in the face of pure Justice» (l. 1). The use of the noun Δίκη to indicate the seat of the governor (praetorium) and his court is widespread in late antique Greek epigraphy (see e.g. the epigram from Gortyna for the praetorian prefect Marcellinus, PPRET 21, ll. 9-10). Thus the columnar base must have been originally located in the porticus of the building opposite the entrance to the Praetorium of Gortyna from the North Street (Vallarino 2012, p. 60, fig. 1). It still stands at the site of its discovery. Vallarino (2012, p. 61, nt. 6), the editor of our inscription, believes that the 175 cm high column was behind the base that supported the statue of Aphthonius, because the inscription was engraved quite high and must have emerged above the statue. In our opinion, the column would have supported a statue that was slightly smaller than life size.

The inscription consists of 4 verses, i.e. two elegiac distichs, distributed along 8 lines to facilitate the reading of words engraved on a convex surface, where a reduced number of letters per line would be more comprehensible. For a detailed commentary on the Greek text of the epigram, see Vallarino 2012. The βουλὴ of Gortyna decreed the monument to Aphthonius; it was solicited by the notables of the city (λογάδες, Lat. principals, see ll. 5-6), and was made by Aristides, whose appointment is not specified.

According to the hypothesis of Vallarino (2012), accepted by Feissel (BE 2013, 513), the recipient of the honorary monument, Aphthonius, may have been a praetorian prefect of Illyricum in the years 375/377 AD, or a vicarious of Macedonia in the years 370/375, 375/379, 381/382 AD. The uncertainty is because the noun ὕπαρχος, in honorary Greek epigrams can indicate both positions (see discussion in PPRET 57). With some caution, the honoured man might be identifiable with Fl. Ovidius Aphthonius, consularis of Numidia around 344/361 AD (Benseddick 2005, pp. 249-252 = AE 2005, 1695). This identification is hypothetical, and no known Aphthonius can be attributed with certainty to our ὕπαρχος of Gortyna (see Vallarino 2012, pp. 64-65). The chronology of Aphthonius’ possible prefectorial office is linked to the identification of the dedicator, Aristides: according to Vallarino, he could be Fl. Fursidius Aristides, consularis Cretae in 372/376 AD (PLRE I, p. 105). The latter would have dedicated the monument to the praetorian prefect Petronius Probus once it had been decreed by the κοινὸν of Crete and the emperor’s permission given. This monument is dated after January 372 AD (Probus styled as former consul) and before or at the end of his prefectural office in Italia-Illyricum-Africa in 375/376 AD (the need for an imperial permission, see PPRET 58).

Fursidius Aristides’ office in the seventies of the 4th Century AD is confirmed by the Gortyna inscription that was made in honour of the consularis Cretae Asclepiodotus in 382/383 AD, by an Ulpius Fursidius Panhellenius and decreed by the Cretan κοινὸν (see ICret. 04, 313; LSA 0774; Bigi, Tantillo 2020, p. 196, nr. 8; the inscription belongs to the ‘cycle of Asclepiodotus’ in the Praetorium of Gortyna, see PPRET 61). Fursidius Panhellenius was a notable (πρωτεύων) of Gortyna, delegated by the κοινὸν, while Fursidius Aristides was probably a governor and related to him; this important family might belong to the Cretan aristocracy. The universally accepted series of praetorian prefects of Italia-Illyricum-Africa which follows the reconstruction of PLRE I (pp. 1050-1051) leaves a small time span, between 376 and 377 AD, for the possible prefecture of Aphthonius, after Petronius Probus in 376 AD (PLRE I, pp. 736-740; see PPRET 57 and 59) and before Iulius Ausonius (PLRE I, p. 139) in the second half of 377 AD. Whether the dedicator of our epigram for Aphthonius from Gortyna was the Fursidius Aristides consularis, who honoured the praetorian prefect Probus at Gortyna in 372/376 AD (PPRET 58), and if the noun ὕπαρχος indicates a praetorian prefect already in the 4th Century – although the only possible 4th Century attestation is in Probus' Athenian epigram PPRET 57 – Aphthonius could be a praetorian prefect of Italia-Illyricum-Africa in 376/377 AD. In this case, the consularis Cretae Fursidius Aristides would have dedicated two monuments to two praetorian prefects one after the other in the period 371/377 AD, probably between 376 AD, the last possible year of the praetorian prefecture of Probus before the inscription in the statuary cycle of Asclepiodotus in the Praetorium (PPRET 61), and 377 AD, the year after which there would be no more room for a prefectorial office of Aphthonius.

Vallarino was cautious in his reconstruction (2012, p. 64: «Né il contesto di scavo, né il dato paleografico ostano a questa datazione, che tuttavia va necessariamente presa con il beneficio del dubbio data l’estrema concisione della formula onomastica, che non consente un’identificazione certa del dedicante»). We propose some observations on this reconstruction by examining the characteristics of Aristides’ epigram in honour of Aphthonius.

The dedicator Aristides does not indicate his office. Both the single name of the dedicator, Aristides, without office, the rythm of the Greek text, the shape of the base (columnar) and the palaeography of the inscription categorically exclude any proximity to the cycle of the consularis Asclepiodotus, author of the restoration of the Praetorium of Gortyna in 382/383 AD (see Bigi, Tantillo 2020; see also PPRET 58, 61, 73). The inscription for Aphthonius is an epigram and the office is indicated by the noun ὕπαρχος, not ἔπαρχος, which in seven out of eight inscriptions of the Asclepiodotus cycle, would indicate instead the praetorian and urban prefects (see Bigi, Tantillo 2020, pp. 191-195, nr. 1; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7). The cycle of Asclepiodotus, dated to 382/383 AD is written in prose not verse, and this choice could explain the difference. However, the use of the noun ὕπαρχος in verse distances Aphthonius’ inscription from contemporary epigraphic practice in Gortyna. On the first monument in honour of Probus, made in Gortyna by Fursidius Aristides (PPRET 58) in ll. 4-7, the prefect is declared to be: τὸν λαμπρ(ότατον) / κ(αὶ) ἐξοχώτατον / ἀπὸ ὑπάτων, / ἔπαρχον τοῦ πραιτωρίου; on the monument in honour of Probus praetorian prefect for the third time within the cycle of Asclepiodotus (PPRET 61), the prefect is cited as being (ll. 2-5): τὸν λαμπρότατον / ἀπὸ ὑπάτων καὶ / ἀπὸ ἐπάρχων πραιτωρίων / γʹ (= τὸ τρίτον). Only in Aphthonius’ epigram is the term ὕπαρχος used in 4th Century Crete, while in the same period, the office of praetorian prefect is indicated in the Greek language by the noun ἔπαρχος 20 times out of 22.

The authority that decreed the monument for Aphthonius is not the κοινὸν of the province of Crete, but the βουλὴ of the city of Gortyna. In the epigram in honour of the praetorian prefect Marcellinus (PPRET 21) the decision of the βουλὴ of Gortyna was concretely executed (in the form of an honorary statue) by Pyrrhus, who was probably an important private citizen (l. 11-12; PLRE I, p. 756 Pyrrhus 2). In fact, towards the end of the 4th Century, a homonymous descendant was honoured as governor of Creta by the erection of a statue in Gortyna; no doubt he was a member of a prominent Cretan family (PLRE I, 756 Pyrrhus 3; see ICret. 04, 324; LSA 0786). In 382/383 AD, it was probably the same Pyrrhus who honoured the consularis Asclepiodotus together with Ulpius Fursidius Panhellenius, when he was still Πύρρος ὁ σοφιστὴς (l. 5, see above). So one can assume that the untitled Pyrrhus who dedicated an inscription in verse to the praetorian prefect Marcellinus, on the Gortyna βουλὴ monument, was almost certainly a very high level citizen, but not a governor.

In the 4th Century, whenever the honorary decree is concretely transformed into an inscribed monument made by a governor, either by decision of the κοινὸν, or by decision of the βουλὴ, the governor indicates his office. In the verse inscription from Athens for the prefect Probus, the proconsul Achaiae Anatolius indicates his office (PPRET 57, l. 3); in the inscription for an anonymous praetorian prefect of the East in Batanea (Syria), the ducenariusin charge of the imperial saltus, indicates his office (PPRET 35, l. 6); in the inscription decreed by the βουλὴ of Gortyna in honour of the praetorian prefect Petronius Probus, the consularis Fursidius Aristides indicates his office (PPRET 58, ll. 10-11); in the inscription decreed by the βουλὴ of Gortyna in honour of the praetorian prefect (for the third time) Petronius Probus the consularis Asclepiodotus indicates his office (PPRET 61, ll. 9-10); in the inscription decreed by the βουλὴ of Gortyna in honour of the praetorian prefect Fl. Hypatius the consularis Asclepiodotus indicates his office (PPRET 73, ll. 9-10); in the inscription decreed by the βουλὴ of Gortyna in honour of the urban prefect of Rome Vettius Agorius Praetextatus the consularis Asclepiodotus indicates his office (ICret. 04, 316; LSA 0777; Bigi, Tantillo 2020, p. 193, nr. 3, l. 6). Only Aristides, who has the monument of the βουλὴ of Gortyna built for Aphthonius is silent about his office. One may suspect that Aristides was not a dignitary, but a local notable (the epithet δῖος does not seem exclusive to officials).

The monument for Aphthonius was commissioned by the leading notables of Gortyna (λογάδες, the “chosen ones”, see ll. 5-6; cf. Lat. principales). The use of the term λογάδες in epigraphy, very late, underlines the urban environment in which it matured into a decree. Indeed, together with the use of a high base and the word ὕπαρχος, it pushes our gortynian text towards the 5th Century, not the 4th Century (on Greek terms defining city notables, cf. Laniado 2002, pp. 177-179, cf. p. 178 concerning the word λογάδες: «le premier exemple que nous ayons trouvé remonte au Ve siècle [...] en 447 ou 448»; Liebeschuetz 2001, pp. 104-124).

But there is another element which pleads against Aphthonius being a praetorian prefect of Italia-Illyricum-Africa: in the years 376-387 AD Crete and Macedonia were in the pars of the emperors Gratianus and Valentinianus II (only in the period 379/381 AD they were in the pars of Theodosius). The sequence of known praetorian prefects in the period from 368 to 387 AD shows that the holders were all noble Roman senators (at least until 385 AD; cf. PLRE I, pp. 1050-1051; idem for the statuary cycle of Asclepiodotus at Gortyna, cf. scheme in Bigi, Tantillo 2020, pp. 70-71). After Vulcacius Rufinus in 368 AD, we encounter Sex. Petronius Probus, Claudius Antonius, Iulius Ausonius, Q. Clodius Hermogenianus Olybrius, Decimius Hilarianus Hesperius, Fl. Hypatius, Vettius Agorius Praetextatus (we think that Afranius Syagrius was praetorian prefect in Gauls, and that Nonius Atticus and Valerius Severus, both Roman aristocrats, were never praetorian prefects); Principius, Eusignius had western careers; Neoterius began his career as a notarius of Valentinianus I. Aphthonius is certainly a dignitary of lower social origin, with onomastics from a Greek-speaking area, wich is very rare in the West. It seems extremely unlikely that Aphthonius could have been chosen by the emperor Gratianus as praetorian prefect of Italia-Illyricum-Africa during the Gothic crisis that began in 376 AD.

Still in the city of Gortyna, a comparison with the base of Aphthonius can be found in the monument in honour of Leontius (PLRE II, p. 668) the praetorian prefect of Illyricum in 412-413 AD, found in front of the entrance to the Praetorium of Gortyna from the North Street (Bigi, Tantillo 2016, p. 217, fig. 17.1; Bigi, Tantillo 2020, p. 16, fig. 12). As in the case of the inscription for Aphthonius, the Greek text is a poem (three elegiac distichs); the monument was set up next to the doors of the governor’s Court, and the office of the honoree is defined as ὕπαρχος, but in this case the monument was made by decree of the κοινὸν of Crete (ICret. 04, 325; LSA 0787):

Εἰκόνα τήνδ’ ἐσάθρει με Λεοντίου ἁγνοῦ ὑπάρχου,

ὃς Κρήτην πολιὴν μοῦνος ἔθηκα νέην.

Ἀγχίθυρος δ’ ἔστηκα Δίκης, κριντῆρσι γάρ εἰμι

ἤπιος εἰθυδίκοις τοῖδ’ ἀδίκοισι δέος.

5 Στῆσε δὲ Καλλείνικος ἐνηεῖ δόγματι νήσσου,

γέης Ἰλλυρίδος δεύτερον ἠέλιον.

“Consider me, statue of the worthy prefect Leontius, who alone made the Cretan city young again. I was set up by the portals of Dike; for I am mild to just judges, but terrible to the unjust. Callinicus set me up, on the benevolent behest of the island, me, the second sun of Illyricum” (transl. by U. Gehn).

It is possible that Callinicus was the provincial governor of Crete (PLRE II, 251), but this is not certain. Similar to the case of the monument decreed by the βουλὴ of Gortyna in honour of the praetorian prefect Marcellinus, at the Court of justice of the Praetorium in 340/341AD (PPRET 21), Callinicus’ name is not linked to any office. We hypothesise that the monument with the epigram in honour of Aphthonius, decreed by the βουλὴ of Gortyna at the behest of the principales of the city may honour a praetorian prefect of Illyricum (the eastern Illyricum) in the 5th Century AD, and that it was made by Aristides, a city notable. If we could identify the maker as the consularis Cretae Fursidius Aristides, then it could be argued that monument perhaps honoured a vicarius Macedoniae of the late 4th Century AD, but it seems unlikely that in 376/377 AD Aphthonius was a praetorian prefect.

Vallarino 2012, p. 59 (with photo and fac-simile, p. 61, fig. 2) (= AE 2012, 1785; SEG 62 (2012), 0636; BE 2013, 513)

Lippolis, Caliò, Giatti 2019, p. 55, fig. 16; p. 432, fig. 15

Baldini I., Interdonato E., Borlenghi A., Lamanna C., L’Età tardoantica: 360-500 (Fase 6), in Lippolis E., L.M. Caliò, C. Giatti (eds), Gortina VIII.1, L’isolato del Ninfeo. La topografia, i monumenti e lo scavo (campagne 2003-2008), Athenai 2019, 419-450 Baldini I., Lippolis E., Livadiotti M., Rocco G., Il tempio del «Caput Aquae» a Gortyna e il tessuto urbano circostante: campagna di scavo 2005, ASAA, ser. III, 83.2, 2005, 625-648 Baldini I., Vallarino G., Gortyn: from City of the Gods to Christian City, in T. Kaizer, A. Leone, E. Thomas, R. Witcher (eds), Cities and Gods. Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Durham, 6-7 July 2007), Leuven-Paris-Walpole MA 2013, 103-119 Benseddik N., Lueurs cirtéennes, ZPE, 153, 2005, 249-260 Bigi F., Tantillo I., Gortyna, in R.R.R. Smith, B. Ward-Perkins, The last Statues of Antiquity, Oxford 2016, 216-228 Bigi F., Tantillo I. (edd.), Senatori romani nel Pretorio di Gortina. Le statue di Asclepiodotus e la politica di Graziano dopo Adrianopoli, Pisa 2020 Liebeschuetz J.H.W.G., Decline and fall of the Roman city, Oxford 2001 Vallarino G., Epigramma dedicatorio per uno hyparchos dall’area del pretorio di Gortina, ZPE, 183, 2012, 59-66 Vallarino G., Cosentino S., Dal Basso L., La società, in E. Lippolis, L.M. Caliò, C. Giatti (eds), Gortina VIII.1, L’isolato del Ninfeo. La topografia, i monumenti e lo scavo (campagne 2003-2008), Athenai 2019, 41-103

πολλῶν ἀντ’ ἀγαθῶν μικρὰ χαριζόμενος

τὸν ἄχραντον ὕπαρχον

τὸν ὕπαρχον