inland.220Given this clustering, and the simplicity of the stone, he suggests that all may be
connected with a visit to this independent state by Augustus’ right-hand man. The romantic notion that the consul of 151 b.c., A. Postumius Albinus, who was known for his philhellenism, acted as a patronus for the Delphians has been denied by C. Eilers.221 The
former interpretation depended on fitting his name into the lacuna in a dedication of a statue to Pythian Apollo by the city of Delphi to Po[. . . c. 8 . . .]lbinus as patronus and benefactor on account of the salvation of the Greeks (SEG 1.152). Eilers prefers to see this as an honour to C. Poppaeus Sabinus (PIR2P 847), governor of Macedonia under Tiberius,
in reference to his crushing a rebellion of Thracian auxiliaries in the mid-20s a.d. (Tacitus, Ann. 4.46–51). At the end of the century, once Thrace had been incorporated as a peaceful province, a newly published statue base shows the boule and demos of Philippopolis honouring as their benefactor the senator Ti. Claudius Sacerdos Iulianus of Asia Minor origin, who, before his promotion to the amplissimus ordo, had been equestrian procura- tor of the province some years previously under Domitian. Published together with this is a second text, a fragmentary building inscription from the stage of the theatre, relating to work on the pyrgos, which may refer to one of the projecting parascaenia that looks rather
216 Thomasson (2006) [= www.radius.nu/LP.Addenda.IV.html]. 217 Dohnicht and Heil (2004).
218 See SEG 18, 350; 29, 775; 32, 843.
219 PIR2C 390 (cos. suff. 45 b.c.), C 391 (cos. 12 b.c.), C 393 (cos. a.d. 37). 220 Engelmann (2004).
tower-like. This mentions a governor, this time a legatus, of whose name only the praenomen (Cn.) survives but who may be identified as Cn. Minucius Fundanus, a suffect consul in a.d. 117.222New information on the career of another senator of the Trajanic
period has come to light at Trebula Mutuesca. Twelve fragments of a marble plaque retrieved from the site of a limekiln during the excavations of the amphitheatre have been attributed to T. Prifernius Sex. f. Quir. Paetus Rosianus Geminus Laecanius Bassus (PIR2
P 938).223Rosianus Geminus was recommended to Trajan by Pliny (Ep. 10.26) and it seems
that the recommendation was highly successful since he went on to fill the magistracies of tribune of the plebs and then praetor as the emperor’s candidate (in quibus honoribus candidatus [divi Traiani fuit]). G. Alföldy publishes six fragments of an inscription recovered from a late antique context on the acropolis of Pantelleria, where a remarkable group of portraits of Julius Caesar, Titus, and the younger Antonia have also recently been found.224This new text was set up by L. Appuleius M.f. Quir. Insulanus (the cognomen is
nice, given the context!) for his father, who had been adlected into the five equestrian decuriae, was made prefect of the cohors I Ulpia Traiana Cugernorum civium Romanorum and decorated in the Dacian wars, and held two other commands before obtaining the previously unattested office of procurator Augusti ab annona ad Puteolos. The article contains a valuable discussion of the administration of the harbour at Puteoli, which may be compared with similar measures for Ostia. The new career may be com- pared with that of M. Vettius C.f. Quir. Latro (ILTun 720 and 721; PIR1 V 332), who
seems to have been procurator annonae Ostiae et in portu at the same time as the newly attested procurator held office at Puteoli. Both terms may have coincided with Trajan’s major reconstruction of the port at Ostia. Evidence for the presence in Britain of members of the lower echelons of the imperial staff (the familia Caesaris) is provided by the record of the sale and purchase of a slave girl found at the site of 1 Poultry in the City of
London.225The surviving leaf of a stilus tablet diptych records that Vegetus the vicarius
(sub-slave) of the imperial slave Montanus paid 600 denarii for a girl of Gallic origin, Fortunata, now at the bottom of three tiers of ownership, enveloping each other like a Russian doll. The likely date of Vegetus’ presence in London is somewhere in the period a.d. 75–125, making him possibly the earliest Caesarianus attested in Britain. He, or at least Montanus, should be added to the late Paul Weaver’s Repertorium of imperial slaves and freedmen, recently published on-line.226
The patronage of an imperial legate of the early Hadrianic period can be detected in the nomenclature of a later senatorial family from the south coast of Asia Minor. W. Eck has published a dedication to Marcia Volusia Egnatia Quieta set up by P. Aelius Bruttianus, who should be identified with P. Aelius Bruttianus Lucanus, a senator attested by IGRR III.776 (Attaleia).227The combination of the praenomen and nomen, P. Aelius, with the
cognomen suggests that the family had received the Roman citizenship from Hadrian through the agency (suffragium) of L. Bruttius Praesens, who was governor of Cilicia, c. a.d. 117–118. A marble statue base found at Karacasu near Aphrodisias in the winter of 2001/2 has also shed light on the granting of citizenship in an earlier generation. This text has revealed important new facts about the peripatetic philosopher, Alexander of
Aphrodisias, best known for his commentaries on Aristotle.228Approved by a vote of the
boule and demos, the base was dedicated by the philosopher to his homonymous father, also styled philosophos. Both bear the Roman names ‘Titus Aurelius’. Not only does this show them to be Roman citizens but also probably to have derived that citizenship from
222 Sharankov (2005).
223 Granino Cecere (2003) = AE 2003, 94, 579. 224 Alföldy (2005).
225 Tomlin (2003) = AE 2003, 1016.
226 Weaver (2005), which quotes the epigraphic evidence for each in full. 227 Eck (2001) = AE 2001, 1938.
the agency of T. Aurelius Fulvus Antoninus (the future emperor Antoninus Pius) when he was proconsul of Asia in a.d. 135–136. Of significance for students of philosophy is the fact that Alexander styles himself diadochos at Athens, suggesting that the chair in philosophy that he was known to have gained with imperial sanction is likely to have been the succession to the Peripatetic School there. Since the elder Alexander also seems to have been a scholar, it has been suggested that he may be the true author of the treatises on Medical Questions, Physical Problems, and On Fevers that have adhered to the corpus of the peripatetic in the manuscript tradition but are generally considered spurious.229
On the other hand, while the Alexanders have received promotion to Roman citizenship, an overlap between the Greek intellectual élite and personnel of the imperial bureaux has been denied by the reinterpretation of the dossier of imperial correspondence with the Epicureans in Athens in the a.d. 120s.230The general consensus of opinion has
held the Heliodorus addressed as the successor of Popillius Theotimus to the Epicurean School in the second letter on SEG 43 (1994), 24 (ll. 8–29) to be identical with Avidius Heliodorus, ab epistulis to the emperor Hadrian c. a.d. 128–130 and prefect of Egypt in a.d. 137–142 (PIR2A 1405). On re-examination of the stone, R. van Bremen has proposed that the author might be the dowager empress, Plotina, rather than Hadrian and that the Roman nomen of Heliodorus ends with the rare –rus and certainly not –dius (see also p. 201, above). Further epigraphic evidence on the activities of philosophers is discussed in a series of notes by C. Jones. One note argues that L. Flavius Hermocrates, a philosopher mentioned on inscriptions from Pergamum (I. Askl. 27–8) should be distinguished from the Hermocrates mentioned in Philostratus (VS II, 25, 608–12, 109–12K), who was a major sophist of the time of Hadrian. His second discussion concerns a newly published text from Trebenna in Pisidia for M. Aurelius Torquatus, a rhetor of the later third century a.d.231In a subsequent set of notes Jones identifies the Mestrius Euphrates of IG II/III.3.1 (1935), 3945 as the philosopher Euphrates of Tyre, a key figure among the Stoics of his day (the late first/early second century a.d.).232
A newly published statue base from Perge plausibly provides the father, prior equestrian career, and nomina of the late Antonine senator (Ti. Claudius) Plotinus (PIR2P499) and,
in Arabia, a newly discovered milestone from the road between Gerasa (Jerash) and Phila- delphia (Amman) leads to revision of the dates of governors of Arabia under Septimius Severus: P. Aelius Severianus Maximus in a.d. 193 and 194/5 (under Severus as imp. VI), Q. Scribonius Tenax in a.d. 196, M. Caecilius Fuscius Crepereianus Flor(i)anus before a.d. 198, L. Marius Perpetuus in a.d. 200–202 or 203.233 From the reign of Severus Alexander comes new evidence on the Roman representative responsible for the refound- ing of Uchi Maius as a colonia in a.d. 230. Three fragments of the dedicatory inscription of the southern arch of the town, recovered between 1993 and 2000, have been joined with CIL VIII.26262 to reveal that the [Colonia Alexandria]na Aug(usta) Uchi Ma[i]us su[b] eius nomine auspicioqu[e] deducta per Caesonium Luc[illum] c(larissimum) v(irum) partes
proco(n)s(ulis) pont[ific?]em v(ices?) adm(inistrantem).234 This accords with what was
already known from the cursus incription of L. Caesonius Lucillus Macer Rufinianus (PIR2
C 209) from the territory of Tibur (CIL XIV.3902 = ILS 1186 = Inscr.It. IV.12, 104), that,
while serving as a legate to the proconsul, he stood in for the regular governor.
From the middle of the third century a.d. comes a series of statue bases erected in honour of various public officials. These important inscriptions have the honour of being the subject of independent publications by two pairs of scholars in the same year.235