Some time ago, my colleague Antonio Trinchese informed me that his work on the Lucius Artorius Castus memorial stone had revealed that the 'Procurator Centenarius' formula could not be found prior to the Severan period. After some additional digging, I was able to extend that back to the reign of Commodus (c. 190). While we know this pay grade was applied to procurators well before Commodus' time, and we have several stones discussing pay grades of various ranks from the reign of Marcus Aurelius, the actual formula used on the LAC stone is not extant for the earlier period.
This would seem to create a problem for us. For the only known (that is, historically attested) reorganization of Dalmatia occurred c. 168 (see https://mistshadows.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-date-of-lucius-artorius-castuss.html). I had made the case for this being the time of the appointment of LAC to the Liburnian procuratorship and the formation of that new provincial division. I have yet to find a professional Roman military historian who does not hold to the view that the most probable date for the founding of Liburnia was just prior to 170. Yet if LAC began as procurator in 168, or at least prior to 170, we are left with a two-decade long span before we encounter another such stone with the procurator centenarius formula.
Antonio (along with Dr. Linda Malcor and Alessandro Faggiani) would have us believe this 20 years is an insuperable gap. Their conclusion, therefore, is that he must have become procurator around or after 190. Their own preference is during the Severan period.
What it comes down to this this: how long might a procurator have served, especially as it was the last rank LAC held in his career? To this we might add the obvious: although LAC claims on his stone to still be alive when it was fashioned, he may well have been retired for some time and even elderly or close to the end of his life. The carving of the stone thus could be placed at a time when the new pay grade formula had just come into fashion. It is not impossible, of course, that the LAC stone displays the first known occurrence of this formula. This is especially true if LAC were indeed made the first procurator of a newly established province in Dalmatia.
So what are we looking at for the term lengths of provincial procurators?
As it turns out, they could serve however long they wished to, subject only to the Emperor's pleasure. The best summary of this fact can be found in this recent, authoritative title:
In that source we are told that "In a procuratorial province, the governor or procurator was appointed directly by the emperor and could serve any length of time he desired."
The infamous Potius Pilate, for example, was procurator of Judaea for 10 years. While I've not yet made a search for other procuratorships lasting this long or longer, I have no doubt that such exist. When and if I have the time, I will attempt to compile a list of such. The more we find, and the longer the terms of those procuratorships prove to be, the more we can allow for the extension of LAC's Liburnian procuratorship.
Given all of the above, I don't think we can afford to insist on LAC being made procurator sometime after 190 A.D. Instead, we may dovetail him quite nicely as a new procurator c. 168, when Dalmatia was reorganized by the joint emperors in the face of the Marcomannic Wars. This being the case, we can have LAC attend Statius Priscus from Britain to Armenia, and accept a reading of ARM[ENIO]S (with a simple N-I ligature) on the LAC stone. We also can let go of the idea that LAC had anything whatsoever to do with the Sarmatians in Britain, who were not shipped there by Marcus until 175 A.D.
If you have LAC commissioned directly into the centurionate (something Tomlin has assured me is quite possible), and allow him to be in his mid-40s, rather than mid-50s, when he goes to Armenia in the early 160s, and then have him made procurator of Liburnia c. 168, he would then be around 50. Let him serve a decade or so (the Marcommanic Wars ended in 182), then retire. He may have made his stone anytime during the reign of Commodus, which is when the procurator centenarius formula first shows up. In 180 (when Commodus started ruling on his own), LAC would be in his early 70s. In 190, his early 80s. There is nothing far-fetched or unrealistic about this - even if we allow for LAC having retired prior to the end of the Marcomannic Wars. He still could have lived in retirement for enough years to take him to the time of Commodus and to have then carved his memorial stone.
Tomlin has pointed out to me that some soldiers' careers could be very long indeed. He cites Pflaum for Cn. Marcius Rustius Rufinus, who became centurion in the reign of Marcus, and proceeded through a series of posts like those held by LAC to become Severus' praefectus vigilum in c.207, enjoying a 30-year career.
As there is some reason to think LAC was the only procurator of Liburnia, it is possible that particular administrative entity - formed because of the onset the the Marcomannic Wars - ceased to exist at the completion of those wars. That event may have coincided with LAC's retirement.
When LAC was made procurator c. 168, he was paid 100,000 sesterces a year. Or maybe that was his final pay grade in the last year he served as procurator. Doesn't really matter which. We know this pay grade was given to procurators even before the time of Marcus. As well as pay grades even higher. Then, late in his life, after retirement, when the formula proc c is current in the reign of Commodus, that is how he carves his rank on his stone. I have gone on and on and on about pay grade/rank inscriptions from the time of Marcus, like that of Marcus Valerius Maximianus. The pay for the rank is NOT THE ISSUE. It is the formula for the rank, proc c, which seems to have originated under Commodus.
Marcus Valerius Maximianus is paid 100,000 sesterces for leading cavalry, then is made procurator of Lower Moesia WITH INCREASED salary. He did all that BEFORE he was made a senator. See http://www.rimskelegie.olw.cz/pages/articles/legincz/mvaleriusmaximianus_en.html.
ARMENIOS remains the best possibility for the ARM[...]S of the LAC stone. At least, this is the consensus of all leading Roman epigraphers. ARMORICOS (with R-I and C-O ligatures) does fit the stone, and would imply a date concurrent with the Deserters' War/Maternus Revolt under Commodus. Unfortunately, we have no independent record of a campaign to Armorica. And such a late date does not accord with the reorganization of Dalmatia c. 168. ARMATOS, still the preferred reading of Trinchese, Malcor and Faggiani, has to my knowledge not been accepted by anyone other than the publisher of their journal article on the subject. Every top Roman epigripher and Roman military historian I have consulted reject the proposed reading. In any case, even if we do opt for LAC fighting 'armed men' (Tomlin's phrase comes to mind here: "a Roman general wouldn't have congratulated himself on fighting against 'armed men', any more than he would have recorded a campaign against inermes."), we find ourselves with a phrase which does not allow us to identify the military action in question with any known event recorded in extant sources. Not, that is, without availing ourselves of unbridled and totally unsupported speculation.
My conclusion, then, after many months of soul-searching, is that LAC took legionary vexillations with him to Armenia under the British governor Statius Priscus. Not too long after the successful Armenian campaign, LAC was awarded the Liburnian procuratorship. He held the position for a considerable period of time before retiring and then had his memorial stone constructed sometime around 182-190, i.e. during Commodus's reign.
My arguments can be set forth in simplified form as follows:
1) The Roman governor Statius Priscus, in the early 160s, was sent from Britain to Armenia on an emergency status. He may well have taken some legionary vexillations with him. LAC may have commanded those units. ARMENIOS is the best reading for ARM[...]S on the LAC memorial stone.
2) Liburnia was probably formed shortly before 170. This would have been when LAC was made procurator of the new province.
3) LAC may have remained procurator of Liburnia for quite some time. He may well have made his stone after retirement, and even when he was quite old. This allows us to accept the "formula" of procurator centenarius as belonging to the right period, i.e. during the last several years of the reign of Commodus.
What follows is a listing of the more important articles I have written on LAC. Taken together, they provide more than ample evidence in support of the ARMENIOS reading for the memorial stone. And if ARMENIOS is correct, then LAC was in Britain prior to the arrival of there of the Sarmatians, and thus would not have had anything to do with the Sarmatians in Britain.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.