History and Silence: Purge and Rehabilitation of Memory in Late Antiquity

APPENDIX: Concerning the Text of CIL 6.1783

APPENDIX Concerning the Text of CIL 6.1783 A HISTORY OF PUBLICATION Despite its importance and difficulty, there have been few editions of the text, and none in this century. It will be convenient to list here (in chronological order) studies pertinent to the establishment of the text. These will be cited by author’s name only in the remainder of the Appendix. Matranga 1849; De Rossi 1849; Cavedoni 1850; G. Henzen, supplement to Orelli 1828–1856, v. 3, no. 5593; G. Henzen and E. Bormann, eds., CIL 6.1783 (1882); Seeck 1883, cxii–cxiii; Paribeni 1933, 493, no. 167; Barbieri 1969, 73–74 with photographs, figs. 1–3. The text of the inscription has often been reproduced in epigraphic collections , though usually without the complete text of the imperial letter (e.g. ILS 2948). I know of no translation of the complete text into English, though translations do exist in French and German.1 The main part of the inscription was discovered in August 1849. Workmen constructing a drain uncovered it in the Forum of Trajan, at the west porch of the Basilica Ulpia. With it was found another inscription, a statue base dedicated by the Spanish provinces in 364 to Flavius Sallustius, who was consul in 363 (CIL 6.1729 ⫽ ILS 1254).2 The inscription was first published in 1849 by Matranga and was re-edited later that same year by De Rossi. This edition has been the basis for all subsequent publications. So, for example, the editors of the CIL, Henzen and Bormann, examined the stone to verify more difficult readings, but depended on De Rossi for most of their text.3 Though I have examined the stone, my text also owes much to De Rossi. On the left side of the statue base (as one faces the inscription), a fragment of a consular date survived.4 More of this date was discovered in 1933, when a fragment was unearthed in the vicinity of the Basilica Ulpia. The editor recognized that the fragment contained a consular date, but incorrectly ascribed it to the time of Septimius Severus. In 1969 G. Barbieri managed to join the fragment to the left side of Flavian’s base. The inscription is now kept in a storeroom built under the modern street to the side of the ruins of the Greek library of the Forum of Trajan. The base and the fragment are located in different parts of the storeroom: one near ‘‘cancello’’ IV, the other near VI. The statue base bears the inventory number 3434. THE TEXT The text of the inscription can be divided into four sections: the two cursus of Flavian and his son (lines 1–6); the imperial letter of Valentinian III and Theodosius II (lines 7–36); a postscript stating the circumstances of the erection of the inscription (lines 37–38); and the formula providing the date when the inscription was set up (left side). The original of the imperial letter would have been written in a less durable medium. The recipients of the letter have reproduced it here for public display. The other sections were composed specifically for the inscription. The dedication of the inscription is unusual. The first lines of the text contain a double cursus, and the honorific language is ambiguous. The inscription is dedicated ‘‘to the father’’ (in the dative) and ‘‘in honor of the son’’ (in the genitive following in honorem). The passive construction of the dedication is odd as well (see Chapter 2). The imperial letter is literary and rhetorical , both sophisticated and convoluted. Comparable examples of bureaucratic prose can be found in the imperial letters reproduced on inscriptions all over the empire, or in the juristic writings collected in the Theodosian Code and the Justinian Code, or in Cassiodorus’ Variae.5 The precise nature of the imperial letter is not clear. De Rossi described it as a diploma (288, 315 n. 1, 348–356). Most subsequent scholars have characterized it more generally as an imperial letter (epistula).6 Strictly speaking, a diploma was a document composed of two leaves (whence the name), sent by the emperor to individuals as evidence of certain privileges (beneficia) granted H I S T O RY A N D S I L E N C E 䡠 248 them. So a traveler might receive a diploma attesting the right of free transport and lodging, or a soldier might receive...