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The Apparitores: A Study in Social Mobility1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Nicholas Purcell
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Gli apparitores: studio delia mobilita' sociale

Circa 500 iscrizioni riguardano gli apparitores (assistenti) dei magistrati romani, e in particolare gli scrivani, i littori e gli araldi. Queste iscrizioni vengono esaminate in dettaglio e il loro contenuto é raffrontato agli accenni a queste occupazioni in letteratura. Questi incarichi erano rispettati e cosí ben organizzati da formare una classe distinta, quella dei decuriales, che offriva ai liberti e ai plebei relativamente umili provenienti dalla provincia italiana una possibilitá di migliorare socialmente; si puó dimostrare che i romani fossero consapevoli di questo processo. Gli esempi comprendono il poeta Orazio e — come viene dimostrato — l'architetto Vitruvio. La testimonianza rientra in un piú ampio quadro di mobilitá sociale in Italia nel periodo tardo repubblicano e imperiale, e di creazione di una omogeneitá culturale nella zona intorno a Roma. Lo studio illustra anche la sottile stratificazione della societá romana, e dimostra che nessun divario esisteva tra l'ordo equester e la plebs.

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Research Article
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Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 51 , November 1983 , pp. 125 - 173
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Copyright © British School at Rome 1983

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References

2 Frank, T., American Historical Review 21, 1916, p. 689 fCrossRefGoogle Scholar. In the same tradition is the important article by Taylor, L. R., AJP 82, 1961, p. 122 fGoogle Scholar. (but cf. n. 74).

3 P. Huttunen, The Social Strata of the City of Rome, 1974; see the review by Duncan-Jones, R. P., JRS 68, 1978, p. 195Google Scholar.

4 A. M. Duff, Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire, 1928; P. R. C. Weaver, Familia Caesaris, 1972. As far as the lower status of Roman society are concerned the prosopographical approach is limited to the augustales; see Duthoy, R., Epigraphica 36, 1974, p. 134Google Scholar f. and ANRW II, 16, 2, p. 1254 f.

5 Z. Yavetz, Plebs and Princeps, 1969; A. Cameron, Circus Factions, 1976, ch. 7; P. Veyne, Le Pain et le Cirque, 1976. These three authors have between them tremendously advanced our knowledge of how Roman public life worked, of what function within it the public acts of the emperor and upper class had, and of the participation of the rest of the population in the public life of the city.

6 Frederiksen, M. W., PBSR 14, 1959, p. 80 f.Google Scholar; article Puteoli, P–W XXIII, 2, 1959, col. 2036 f.Google Scholar; R. Meiggs, Roman Ostia, 2nd edn., 1973. The recent work of J. D'Arms, Commerce and Social Standing in Ancient Rome, 1982, is a major contribution in this field.

7 S. Treggiari, Roman Freedmen during the Late Republic, 1969; Wiseman, T. P., New Men in the Roman Senate, 139 B.C–14 A.D., 1971Google Scholar.

8 This is the picture given by R. MacMullen, Roman Social Relations, 1974, pp. 88–94, for example. He seriously underestimates the actual size of the Roman upper-class and the complexity of its relations with the other sections of Italian society. Compare P. A. Brunt, Italian Manpower, 1970, p. 383: ‘There is no evidence for a middle class in the city intervening between them (the upper class) and the poor.’ For an attempt to redress the balance, below, sections VII–VIII.

9 The pioneer study is by Mommsen, , Rh.Mus. 6, 1846, p. 1Google Scholar, now vitiated by much new evidence. Mommsen revised his views by the time of the Staatsrecht, in which the fullest presentation of the material is to be found; Staatsrecht I3 pp. 332–71, hereafter simply Mommsen. Despite the sensitivity and thoroughness of that study misconceptions remained; hence Dessau's amazement at EE VII 1944Google Scholar, an inscription showing that the free-born might want to be scribae librarii (cf. n. 213 below). The article ‘Apparitor’ in the Dizionario Epigrafico (by E. De Ruggiero himself) is again very thorough. Jones', A. H. M. study ‘The Roman Civil Service, Clerical and Subclerical Grades’, JRS 39, 1949, p. 38 f.Google Scholar = Studies in Roman Government and Law, 1960, p. 151 f., is good on the Republic and Late Empire but very brief in between. All these accounts start from the notion that the apparitores were bureaucrats or civil servants, and schematise the organisation far too much. Good brief accounts from a social point of view are to be found in Treggiari, op. cit. (n. 7), pp. 153–9 and Wiseman, op. cit. (n. 7), pp. 70–7. See also section II of the present paper and F. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World, 1977, pp. 66. 9.

10 Piso in Gellius, Aulus, NA VII 9Google Scholar, 3, cf. Wiseman, op. cit. (n. 7), p. 72; cf. Tab. Herac, Bruns7, 18, 94 for praecones.

11 On the appointment of apparitores see the lex de viginti quaestoribus, Bruns7, 12, passim; Mommsen pp. 337–8 and the discussion of patronage below, section IV. For the deliberate discouragement of close personal attachment to a magistrate, below, n. 75.

12 For praefecti fabrum see below, pp. 156–58. The accensi had a curious intermediate status, being listed beside the other apparitores in several sources (e.g. Bruns7, 28, lex Ursonensis, LXII; Frontinus, Aq. 100) and coming from very similar backgrounds, but remaining much more closely attached to a particular magistrate until well into the first century A.D. That at least the always quasi-military accensi velati eventually acquired a status analogous to that of the apparitorial decuriales is suggested by AE 1926.58 ‘perpetuus acc. vel. Romae’; cf. ‘perpetuus decuriatus Romae’, n. 51 below.

13 C. Nicolet, in L'Onomastique Latine, ed. N. Duval, 1977, p. 49. (In Le métier de citoyen, 1976, p. 14, Nicolet takes a very strong view of the practical importance of the apparitores in Roman public life.) I have deliberately avoided the term class as much as possible; the difficulty of analysing the intermediate statuses between rich and poor in Roman society in terms of a middle class has been one of the reasons for ignoring them in modern scholarship. The phenomena discussed in this paper are movements and changing statuses. Our evidence is usually not good enough to examine ancient society in economic terms.

14 Frontinus, Aq. 101: ‘apparitores et ministeria, quamvis perseveret adhuc aerarium in eos erogare, tamen esse curatorum videntur desisse inertia ac segnitia non agentium officium.’

15 Bruns7, 12, 11. 24–30; CIL VI 1946–1947Google Scholar, early tombs for the apparitores and praecones veteres of the aediles, their vicarii, and their offspring. Also Mommsen, , Rh. Mus. 6, 1846, p. 9 fGoogle Scholar. The lex Ursonensis provides for apparitores who serve only a small fraction of the year, Bruns7, 28, LXIV.

16 Apparitores who died in their twenties are relatively common, e.g. CIL VI 1840, VIII 8936Google Scholar, but there is nothing as uncompromising as the praefectus fabrum aged 8, CIL IX 223, or the accensus velatus aged 3, CIL VI 1973Google Scholar.

17 For pluralist decuriales, e.g. App. nos. 6, 9, 19–22; for vagueness about grade, cf. p. 152 and, e.g. CIL VI 1095 = 31239 = ILS 503; AE 1971. 369.

18 E.g. AE 1921. 39; AE 1967. 444. It should be noticed that our evidence has a strong Italian bias, and that therefore apparitores in the provinces are probably seriously under-represented.

19 E.g. the late third century SC de nundinis, CIL VIII 370.

20 For the overlap between the apparitor's official duties and his other activities, see also, e.g. App. no. 8.

21 CIL VI 1932Google Scholar. That financial duties were important is suggested by the relatively high number of apparitores who served in the aerarium and by Cod. Theod. XIV, 1, 1 ‘decuriarum ordine … cui librariorum vel fiscalium sive censualium nomen’. Cf. nn. 100, 125, 151, 163.

22 On the scribes' judicial functions see Mommsen p. 351 and cf. Digest V, 1, 82 ‘nonnumquam solent magistratus populi Romani viatorem nominatim vice arbitri dare, quod raro et non nisi re urgente faciendum est’. CIL VI 32294 = ILS 1911 suggests that viatores of the decemviri stlitibus iudicandis assisted in the centumviral court. The other inscriptions are CIL VI 1853, AE 1913, 20, and CIL VI 1819Google Scholar = ILS 1896. It might be thought that these were spare-time activities which indicate inattention to official duties. But an overlap seems likely. Cod. Theod. VIII, 9, 1, of A.D. 335 is a clear indication of the judicial function at that date of lictors and scribae librarii.

23 That these terms refer to honorific mock-magistracies, and not simply to the munus or honos of having been an apparitor is suggested by the analogy with other public bodies which have these posts.

24 AE 1935. 169. Cf. IEph 411, 720, 2113, 4123.

25 IEph 1540 = ILS 8833 (I have translated the terms to their Latin equivalents).

26 Bruns7. 28.

27 Bruns7, 12, 8, 12, forbidding slaves to be praecones or lictors.

28 Suetonius, Dom. 9, 3. Is the law another demonstration that Clodius' involvement with the associations of the plebs was concerned with more than the cynical encouragement of urban violence for political ends ?

29 Dio XLVIII 43. The law also forbade senators to fight as gladiators, another inversion of the normal social order.

30 CIL VI 10621 = 32272a.

31 Livy II 55, 3, with Mommsen p. 333, n. 1.

32 Dio LIV 36, 1.

33 Plutarch, Cato 16.

34 On apparitores in the Republic see Mommsen, pp. 332–8; Wiseman, op. cit. (n. 7), pp. 72–4. The ancient scandals were, in particular, the cases of Cn. Flavius, , Gellius, AulusNA VII 9Google Scholar, 3; Valerius Maximus II 5, 2 and Claudius Glicia, Livy, Per. XIX. Cases of corruption: Livy, XXX 39, 7; XXXVIII 55, 5. The elder Cato (tr. 173 Malcovati, ll. 18–20) boasted that he had not illegally enriched his apparitores.

35 There is no systematic study of these developments; see, however, J. H. W. E. Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change in Roman Religion, 1979, ch. 2. The reorganisation of basic institutions of the Roman plebs such as the pagi and vici of the city, and the ancient urban collegia, and the encouragement of institutions like the iuvenes and Augustales are the parallels to be considered here.

36 Val. Max. IX 1, 8.

37 Cicero, ND III 30 mentions the sexprimi of the scribae quaestorii in an interesting passage that reveals how the handwriting of such officials could be considered worth forging; cf. Livy, XL 55, 1. It is unlikely that the other decuriae yet had such a developed system of honours, which first becomes apparent in post-Augustan inscriptions: but the argument from epigraphic silence is of course weak. For other such honorific offices, imitating the state's magistracies, see section II.

38 CIL VI 1942 = ILS 1918, cf. Mommsen, p. 268 n. 4. L. Valerius L. l. Stasimus calls himself magister collegii viatorum, which is likely to be the equivalent of decurialis viator honore usus. But no mention of the decuria is certainly older than the second century A.D., SO we cannot be certain.

39 Mommsen referred this to an attempt to discriminate between freeborn and libertine apparitores, but it may only be an arbitrary distinction of status in the same spirit as the epithet Iulia for the consular praecones (below n. 40), perhaps reflecting the difference in status between curule and other aediles. Either explanation would suit the Augustan atmosphere. See CIL VI 1843Google Scholar = ILS 1883, CIL VI 32267 = 1848 + 2176 ‘scriba decuriae aediliciae maioris’. ‘The viator tribunicius decuriae maioris,’ CIL VI 1935Google Scholar = ILS 7489 remains a problem. ‘Compare a scriba librarius quaestorius e tribus decuriis minoribus ab aerario’ CIL VI 1819Google Scholar = ILS 1896. He was a freedman, but so were almost all librarii (cf. nn. 212-3).

40 E.g. CIL VI 1944 = ILS 1934, a dedication by the ordo decuriae Iuliae praeconiae consularis. Cf. n. 127.

41 CIL VI 32270a preserves most of the period A.D. 12–20; cf. 37144 (A.D. 26–8), 1495 = 32271 (A.D. 80–1). Note, however, that the lex de XX quaestoribus provides for the keeping of an album of praecones and viatores, Bruns7, 12, 11. 39–41.

42 Suetonius, Cl. 1, 3.

43 The funeral of Pertinax (below, n. 47) gives us an idea of what might be done; it is very likely that it follows Julio-Claudian precedents.

44 For the term, Mommsen, p. 343.

45 Suetonius, Aug. 57.

46 Tacitus, , Ann. XIII 27Google Scholar. ‘Decuriae’ seems to be restricted in meaning here, unless ‘ministeria etc.’ extends and explains it. Mommsen, p. 341, takes ministeria as referring to accensi and calatores.

47 Dio LXXIV 4. 5.

48 Tertullian, Apol. 37.

49 On the distinction between apparitores and iudices selecti see Demougin, S., Anc. Soc. 6, 1975, p. 162Google Scholar.

50 Petronius, , Sat. 71, 12Google Scholar; see now D'Arms, op. cit. (n. 6), p. 110. Of course the possibility that Petronius means us to think that Trimalchio has no very clear idea of what he is talking about must be considered!

51 CIL XI 2115 = ILS 6611 (Clusium, clearly late); CIL XI 3041 = ILS 1941 (from the Bracciano region of S. Etruria (cf. below, p. 161 and p. 166)). Cf. also n. 12.

52 The Spanish example is ILS 6934. Also CIL VI 777, 1973, 6719, 9660 = ILS 7515, 32313, 33716 (fourth century), 36787, 37155, all from Rome; X 3879 (Capua), 4588 (Caiatia), 6584 (Velitrae). And with details of grade but no post: VI 31740 (praetorian); II 4180, VI 1095, ILS 1937 (aedilician); ILS 1937, AE 1971. 367 (tribunician); VI 32312 (III dec); XIV 4239 (dec. Caes. cos. pr.).

53 For the ordines see, e.g. CIL VI 435 (lictors), 1810 (scribes); Mommsen p. 342, n. 4. CIL VI 1946 is from a collective tomb for aedilician apparitores in a prime site near the Porta Capena: 1948 is set up ‘permissu collegarum’. Frag. Vat. 142, cf. 235 shows that this collegiality was guaranteed by law: decuriales were usually immune from the burden of tutela, but not in the case of the child of a condecurialis. See also CIL VI 37143 = ILS 1878, and for a procurator ordinis CIL VI 1810. For groups of apparitores with a common patronus, below, n. 88.

54 CIL VI 36910, the dedication to Claudius.

55 For this vital status-indication, Tacitus, , Ann. XVI 12Google Scholar.

56 CIL IX 2454 = ILS 1033, c. A.D. 100.

57 CIL VI 103 = 30692 = ILS 1879. Cf. n. 109.

58 The schola viatorum quaestorium was in the Campus Martius, n. 113 below, and that of the viatores of the tresviri capitales and quattuorviri varum curandarum on the Aventine, n. 189 below. Similarly, the apparitores of different aediles had widely separated scholae, in the Forum in the case of the curule aediles and probably near the Temple of Ceres at the foot of the Aventine for those of the plebeian and Cereal aediles: nn. 111–12 below for the references.

59 CIL VI 967a. Other imperial dedications: to Claudius CIL VI 31295a (lictors), to Pius VI 998 = ILS 331 (viatores quaestorii), VI 1008 (pullarii), to Faustina VI 1019 = ILS 382 (viatores quaestorii), to Gordian VI 1095 (decuriales aedilicii), 1096 (geruli). See also nn. 51 (all the apparitores to Claudius), 188 (the scribae armamenlarii to Hadrian) and 56 (all the viatores to Hadrian, also in A.D. 118).

60 Festus p. 446-7 L; cf. Horsfall, N., BICS 23, 1976, pp. 79 fGoogle Scholar.

61 A tenuous deduction from CIL VI 328 = ILS 3434; cf. VI 1931.

62 CIL VI 435.

63 For the connections between the apparitores and the tribes, see n. 68.

64 Tertullian, Apol. 39.

65 E.g. App. no. 17, or CIL VI 466 = ILS 1930.

66 E.g. Cat. IV 15; Dom. 74.

67 Verr. III 184, cf. Wiseman, op. cit. (n. 7), p. 73; notice too the connection between some scribes and the world of the theatre, on which cf. section V below.

68 The decuriae acquired an institutional momentum of their own which eventually cut them off somewhat from their original immediate dependence on their magistrates and enabled them to gain prestige independently and to look further afield for patrons. Mommsen, p. 343, puts the development in these terms: ‘Den ausserordentlichen Einfluss, den inbesondere die höheren Kategorien diesen Officialen in Staat besassen, verräth auch diese Entwicklung der Stellenbesetzung, wobei die ursprünglichen Principien der Annuität und des freien magistratischen Ernennungsrecht bei Seite geschoben und diese Posten gewissermassen in einer von Hand zu Hand gehende Staatsrente ungewandelt werden’; see section II above. By the time of CIL VI 10215–16, in that other organ of urban plebeian consciousness, the tribe system, deserving figures were being appointed to what was clearly a signal and expensive honour, the posts of scriba or viator to the corporate body of the tribe. Cf. App. no. 18, a prominent apparitor with an honorific position in a tribe.

69 Suetonius, Vesp. 3.

70 Tacitus, , Ann. XVI 12, 4Google Scholar.

71 See especially Fr. Vat. 142, 158, 236; Cod. Theod. VIII 9; XIV 1. Cf. Cod. Just. X 71; XII 52–9, 61. P. W. Duff, Personality in Roman Private Law, 1938, p. 101 remarks ‘(the decuriae) are more prominent in the legal texts than they deserve to be'—a nice example of high-handedness towards the evidence.

72 For the details see the discussion in section VI; see too n. 74.

73 L. Marius Perpetuus: cf. Pflaum, Procurateurs, p. 411, and nn. 130 and 231.

74 On the Augustales see Duthoy, op. cit. (n. 4), esp. p. 141, p. 1284. The view about the rigidity of the separation between equestrian and freedman is exemplified by the wildly misleading statement of Taylor, art. cit. (n. 2), p. 131: ‘At Rome there were no distinctions for the freeborn like the careers as imperial bureaucrats and as apparitores magistratuum available for imperial freedmen and the more prosperous freedmen of private citizens.’ It is a mistake even to compare the categories eques and libertus, as they are different kinds of category. Studies of relations between senator and eques have now become more refined, and the separation between the two categories and their rather different nature is becoming better understood. The same should be true of these two. Even the recent careful remarks of Millar, op. cit. (n. 9), p. 67 suggest that all the decuriales were of lower than equestrian status.

75 Duff, op. cit. (n. 71), p. 101. This is a perversion of Mommsen's cautious statement that ‘hier gab es für die Libertinenaristocratie weder die Augustalität wie in den Municipien’ (p. 341). Something of a similar part was played by the apparitorial posts.

76 Horace, , Ep.l 1, 57 fGoogle Scholar.

77 On salaries of apparitores see Mommsen, pp. 334–7, with examples of disdain for mercennarii. The disrepute of money-making linked the equestrian and the apparitorial worlds: cf. the attempt to keep scribes from being negotiatores (n. 28), a clear indication that they often, and successfully, engaged in business. The inscriptions tell the same story; see nn. 146, 154–5, 170–2; there is interestingly little evidence for scribes. Cf. Martial V 56, 11: ‘artes discere vult pecuniosas? praeconem facias vel architectum.’ The most vivid illustration of the payment of salaries to scribes is the anecdote in Pliny, , Ep. 4, 12Google Scholar of the honest Egnatius Marcellinus who ‘cum in provinciam quaestor exisset, scribam qui ante legitimum salarii tempus amisisset, quod acceperat scribae daturus, intellexit et statuit subsidere apud se non oportere’.

78 Section V for the scholae; n. 48 for the banquets; CIL XIV 5340 for an example of a hand-out to apparitores at Ostia.

79 See nn. 144–5, 155, 174; App. no. 25.

80 Livy XL 29.

81 The evidence for the sale of decuriae is collected by Mommsen, p. 340. Cf. n. 68.

82 For Horace and Sarmentus, below, section V; Asclas is App. no. 18.

83 Plutarch, Ti. Gr. 12; Val. Max. IX 5, 2. For Verres, e.g. Cicero, , Verr. III 181Google Scholar.

84 CIL VI 6375, from the Tomb of the Statilii; CIL VI 32307. Cf. a scribe of Augustus' sister Octavia, CIL VI 8881 = ILS 1877, and n. 161.

85 AE 1945. 113; CIL VI 1915. The most famous example is the verse epitaph of Aurelius Zosimus, in which he explains his patron's generosity: CIL XIV 2298 = ILS 1949 = Ehrenberg and Jones2 no. 358.

86 ILS 9039.

87 App. n. 11. For the development, and Mommsen's view of it, see above, n. 68.

88 The best example dates from about A.D. 100, CIL IX 2434–5 = ILS 1033–4. Note also CIL VI 31740 and 6148, where the aediles' staff may be honouring a procurator Miniciae et Macelli Magni because of his concern with their employers' cura Urbis: thus Pflaum no. 279. See also CIL VI 37143 = ILS 1878.

89 This is the case in CIL VI 1829Google Scholar, and App. no. 6; as with the famous cases known from the literary texts, Clesippus, Gemellus, Horace, Sarmentus. The ties of patronage need not imply any crude quid pro quo, but, as these cases show, could be very close even when the relationship was not that of patron and freedman. That they were so did not necessarily circumscribe the apparitor's. freedom of action. On patronage in general, perhaps inclining to a rather harder line than that taken here, R. P. Sailer, Personal Patronage under the Early Empire, 1982, is now basic.

90 But we must not exclude other forms of possible gain: did the scriba quaestorius who was a freedman of Volusius Saturninus (App. no. 7) devoted enough to be ‘sacerdos Geni L. nostri censoris’ help in the acquisition of the family's notorious wealth?

91 App. no. 6; CIL VI 1852Google Scholar (M. Porcius M.l., a doubtful case); I. Eph. 411, 720, 2113, 4123 (C. Stertinius C.l.); AE 1974. 224 (D. Valerius Asiatici 1.); CIL VI 1833Google Scholarb and c (both Volusii); VI 6375 (T. Statilius ? T.I.) 5 VI 32307 (M. Valerius Messallae 1.); VI 1948 (Q. Haterius Q.1.); VI 32269 (Actes 1.); VI 8881 = ILS 1879 (Octaviae l.): and nn. 86 and 90. Some of these may be privately employed; all are early, it will be noted.

92 Pliny, , HN XXXIV 11Google Scholar: the passage is, however, corrupt and some of the detail is confused.

93 E.g. CIL VI 1808Google Scholar = ILS 1898; CIL III 6589 = ILS 1920. Note also Bebryx Aug. lib. Drusianus, dedicator of the schola mentioned above in n. 57, presumably Julio-Claudian in date (from the nomenclature). The best account of the emperors' apparitores is Millar, cit. (n. 9).

94 The most striking case is Ti. Neritus, Claudius, CIL VI 1921Google Scholar, but cf. VI 31295. For Claudius' attitude to apparitores cf. p. 170 and n. 269. For the converse process, nn. 21, 125, 163.

95 On patronage between kin see now Sailer, op. cit. (n. 89), p. 135 ff. For examples where this type of exchange may be suspected, CIL VI 1830Google Scholar = ILS 1927 (a tabularius of the viatores quaestorii who is amicus and brother-in-law of a slave of one of those viatores).

96 Cod. Theod. XIV 1, 1.

97 The best discussion of the subject, with full bibliography, is Horsfall, art. cit. (n. 60), p. 79 f.

98 Val. Max. III 7, 11.

99 Festus p. 446 L. The festival of the goddess, the Quinquatria, on March 19th, was particularly celebrated by doctors, schoolmasters, painters, sculptors and engravers, Ovid, Fasti III 821. For the social position of actors in the late Republic see the brilliant article of Garton, C., Phoenix 18, 1964, p. 137 fCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

100 AE 1968. 33. He was also a nomenclator, a praeco ab aerario, and accensus consulis et censoris.

101 Horsfall, art. cit. (n. 60), pp. 84–6 rightly insists that the imitation is not direct; but the parallels are nonetheless impressive. On the aedes Herculis Musarum see now Martina, M., Dd'A n.s. 3, 1981, p. 49f.Google Scholar, suggesting that in origin the poetic ties of the new foundation were deliberately separated from those of the old Aventine collegium.

102 For Horace's apparitorial post see Taylor, L. R., AJP 46, 1925, p. 161 f.Google Scholar; E. Fraenkel, Horace, 1957, pp. 14–15.

103 Horsfall, art. cit. (n. 60), p. 91. For verses of this sort on a viator's tomb, CIL X 6008.

104 See Syme, R., JRS 51, 1961 p. 23 f.Google Scholar = Roman Papers II p. 518, especially p. 523 and p. 528, on the similar social status of some equestrians and some freedmen: ‘the dinner-tables of freedmen, like their good offices, are not disdained by persons of superior rank or blameless morality’; Wiseman, op. cit. (n. 7), pp. 50–2 on the social mingling of men from the Italian towns with the Roman aristocracy, especially p. 52 on the origins of poets. Also, an excellent survey of this society and its tastes, Griffin, J., JRS 66, 1976, p. 87Google Scholar f.

105 Pliny, , Ep. I 10Google Scholar, 9.

106 A good survey of freedmen scribes in Cicero's employ in M. E. Park, The Plebs in Cicero's Day, 1918, p. 62 f.

107 Cicero Verr. III 183–4 on high status of scribes. For the community of these δημιοῖργοι note also their common cult, above n. 60–2, and for the theatrical links of the words of social climbing, above, n. 67. The discussion of N. B. Crowther, Latomus 32, 1973, p. 575 emphasises the dramatic links of what we know of the collegium poetarum.

108 Schol. to Juvenal, Sat. V, 3. The anecdote ends with the ultimate disgrace of Sarmentus, the upstart discomfited, and so clearly derives from the same sort of collection of moralising exempla as the tale of Gegania and Clesippus (Pliny, , HN XXXIV 11Google Scholar, cf. n. 92 and p. 15 with Appendix, no. 1.) with its unedifying details of lust, luxury, debased nobles and parvenu menials.

109 The older Roman equivalent of the schola or λέσχηwas the curia, of course closely linked with the public life of the Roman state. The Curia Athletarum, a hall in the vicinity of Trajan's Thermae, shows the blending of the traditions in its name. The fringes of the great bath-complexes of the middle and later Empire were expressly designed to accommodate this semi-public life, and rather took over from the Campus Martius; but in fact the Curia Athletarum, a building on the same orientation as the Domus Aurea, may be a creation of Nero's Hellenising taste. The schola of the heralds and copyists of the curule aediles was fitted up in the following way: ‘scholam ab inchoato refecerunt, marmoribus ornaverunt, Victoriam Augustam et sedes aeneas et cetera ornamenta dederunt … imagines deorum VII et mutulos cum tabella aenea …’ CIL VI 103 = ILS 1879; for the date, above, n. 93.

110 CIL VI 1936 = 32306.

111 CIL VI 1095, from S. Maria in Cosmedin, strengthening the case for believing that the ruins beneath the church are those of the temple.

112 CIL VI 103 = ILS 1879.

113 CIL VI 816, of A.D. 238. The schola could have been either in the complex of Balbus, on which see E. Nash, Bildlexicon, s.v. Theatrum Balbi, or in the elaborate porched porticus known to have lain along the north side of that complex (and identified by some with the Porticus Minucia, but see now G. Rickman, The Corn Supply of Ancient Rome, 1980, Appendix 9).

114 As the first permanent theatre, Pompey's remained the stone theatre for some time, but the reference in the inscription to the censor makes it easy to date the inscription to before the dedication of the theatres of Marcellus or Balbus. Another link between apparitores and the Campus Martius may underlie the devotion of the lictors to Iuppiter Stator (cf. n. 62); the dedication which reveals it could easily be from the temple in the Porticus Octaviae rather than the older one at the foot of the Palatine.

115 On the Campus Martius in general Castagnoli, F., Mem. Linc. 7, 1, 1946, p. 93 fGoogle Scholar.

116 Platner-Ashby, Top. Dict. s.vv. Apollo, Templum and Curia Pompeii.

117 ‘Suetonius, v. Hor. 15; ‘scriptum quaestorium comparavit’. Cf. above p. 138.

118 No. 18. On the collegium scabillariorum see Waltzing, J. P., Les Corporations Professionelles, IV, 1900, pp. 42, 119, 121Google Scholar. It comprised at least 16 decuriae. For actors cf. n. 99.

119 CIL XIV 5340 (Pflaum no. 352).

120 For the religious connections of the apparitores see also section VIII.

121 On these three statuses, Mommsen, pp. 356–7 f.; De Ruggiero, E., Diz. Epigr. IGoogle Scholar s.vv.

122 The praecones were important executive agents of the magistrates as well as heralds: a good account in Mommsen, p. 363 f. I have excluded auctioneers and announcers in private business, also called praecones, but distinguished by not specifying a magistrate in whose service they are, and often by an address in the city: e.g. CIL VI 1956, ae praeco de regione porta Capena’. The two who are described simply as praeco are VI 1943 (consularis) and 1949 (tribunicius).

123 Though it should be noted that praecones in the late Republic could certainly rely on the services of vicarii; VI 1946–7, cf. above, n. 15. The low status is clear from Martial 6, 8: ‘praetores duo, quattuor tribuni, septem causidici, decem poetae … nuptias petebant a quodam sene … ille praeconi Eulogo dedit puellam …’.

124 VI 1944 = ILS 1934, 1945 (apparuit Caesari Augusto), IX 4967, all imperial; AE 1904. 109, simply apparitor.

125 The job of the praeco was very close to that of the nomenclator. Cornelius Surus (AE 1968. 33) was both. As the familia Caesaris replaced outsiders in the provision of imperial officials praecones who served the emperor in his public capacity are replaced by the numerous nomenclatores of the household. The post of personal accensus or apparitor to the emperor as magistrate changes likewise; cf. n. 21, and on the similar history of imperial viatores, n. 163.

126 Appendix, no. 15, which is in many ways an exceptional case-history. But App. no. 20 is a case of the rise to equestrian status of the apparitor's grandson: cf. CIL VI 1870 for the details. The other decurial ‘pluralist’ praecones: VI 9026–7, XIV 2265, XV 2221. Success in municipal life: VI 1944 = ILS 1934; AE 1904. 109.

127 The decuria Iulia is mentioned four times: VI 1944 = ILS 1934, IX 4967, XI 3294, XIV 2265. The epithet is presumably Augustan. For honorific titles for decuriae compare the decuria viatoria consularis equestris, n. 163.

128 Though both were probably recent libertine descent; C. Calpurnius Sp.f. Col. Apollinaris, IX 4967 and P. Aemilius P.f. Nicomedes, of a successful apparitorial family, App. no. 20. Note also the single imperial freedman known to have been a praeco, M. Aurelius Aug. 1. Lydius, VI 9026–7. On ingenui in predominantly libertine grades see p. 159.

129 AE 1968. 33. See nn. 97–117 for discussion of this man's milieu.

130 App. no. 15. One should compare M. Aurelius Aug. 1. Lydius (above, n. 128), whose inscription is unfortunately very damaged. Marius Maximus himself is of a family which was originally apparitorial; see nn. 73 and 231.

131 IX 4967, a family burial-place.

132 XIV 221, clearly of Republican data; 2265. XI 3294 (Vicarello near Lake Bracciano; cf. n. 51). The sevir of Praeneste, AE 1904. 109.

133 VI 1944 = ILS 1934. The ordo praeconum was socially acceptable to the scribae librarii at Rome; the praecones and scribae librarii of the curule aediles shared a smart schola near the Forum: above, n. 57.

134 The lictors received special treatment from scholars in Italy between the wars; see especially De Sanctis, G., Riv. Fil. VII, 1929, p. 1Google Scholar; A. M. Colini, Il Fascia Littorio, 1932.

135 See CIL VI 1903 ff. Their cognomina have a very libertine air.

136 That is 78 per cent; for viatores the proportion is 76 per cent, and for scribes 23 per cent.

137 CIL VI 1872 (A.D. 206); CIL VI 1880 = ILS –905. From the familia Caesaris; App. no. 17; CIL VI 37150.

138 For the functions of the different kinds of lictor, see Mommsen, p. 355 f.; Jones, op. cit. (n. 9), p. 154; cf. p. 129 above.

139 CIL VI 1884 = ILS 1792 = Smallwood, Nerva etc., no. 176.

140 App. no. 10; CIL XIV 2840 = ILS 1571, from the department ab epistulis. It is possible that this post was imitated in the more ambitious coloniae, especially Puteoli and Ostia. Cf. nn. 150 and 241–9 and pp. 160–61.

141 Ingenuus, CIL VI 1872; curiatii, CIL XIV 296 = ILS 1916, App. no. 15, CIL 1892 = ILS 1915; other apparitorial posts, App. nos. 15, 17–18, CIL 1892 = ILS 1915.

142 Asia: CIL III 6083 = ILS 1913; AE 1933. 265; AE 1972. 578 = 1977. 797. Galatia; CIL III 6759 = ILS 1914.

143 Legio (León); AE 1967. 225; Burdigala; ILS 1906, announcing that the lictor in question, who died at 70, was a ‘cives (sic) urbicus.’ See too CIL III 328 = 6987, from Nicomedia, and XIII 1813 at Gallic Lugdunum.

144 I.Eph. 648, 857, 1544–5. Another inscription is forthcoming in JÖAI LI, 196–7, Grabungen, p. 26. For other apparitorial benefactors at Ephesus see n. 25 above, and n. 221 below.

145 The freedman I. Eph. 857; the statarium, App. no. 12, with L. Robert, Ann.E.H.E. 1964–5, p. 179 = Op. Min. Sel. IV p. 253; Harris, W., MAAR XXXVI, 1980, p. 127Google Scholar.

146 CIL VI 1859–1860Google Scholar; 1936 = ILS 1929. The schola, built for these viatores ‘in honorem domus Augustae’, makes it likely but not certain that Secundus was one of their number. See also above, n. 58. For the tendency for these positions to run in families, or at least in familiae, pp. 141–42 and n. 95.

147 CIL III 6083 = ILS 1913; CIL III 6759 = ILS 1914. Notice too the lictors who together with the rest of the staff of the proconsul of Macedonia made a dedication at Samothrace in A.D. 165; AE 1967. 444.

148 CIL VI 1883Google Scholar. Cf. also CIL VI 1881, a freeborn lictor imperatoris with a freedman background; and the fragmentary CIL VI 32288 another lictor proximus who rose to be Laurens Lavinas (for that post see Section VIII).

149 CIL XIV 4641.

150 CIL XIV 4642. The career of this ingenuus is very closely connected with Ostia, including posts like scriba cerarius, which are a unique local imitation of the Roman apparitorial grades. CIL XIV 296 = ILS 1916, names an Ostian ‘lictor decuriae curiatiae quae sacris publicis apparet’. At Rome, as far as we know, the lictores curiatii were divided by curiae and there is no evidence for a decuria, but in the coloniae a decuria would have been possible, so this too may have an Ostian reference. Cf., however, n. 248. At Puteoli cf. CIL X 1724; and in general on imitation of the apparitorial system in the two towns pp. 163–64 and nn. 241–9.

151 On App. no. 10 and CIL XIV 2840 = ILS 1571, both from the department ab epistulis and high up within the emperor's service, see Weaver, op. cit. (n. 4), pp. 152–62. CIL VI 1878 = ILS 1912 is a freedman of Plotina who had served as nomenclator a censo. Nomenclatures and apparitores are linked in the Republic (n. 20, cf. 100 and 163), and censuales and decuriales in the fourth century (n. 21). The fragmentary inscription CIL VI 37150 may be another case.

152 For the villa Magna see Aurelius, M., Ep. ad Front. IV 4, 5Google Scholar; CIL X 5905; M. Mazzolani, Anagnia (= Forma Italiae I. 6), 1969, p. 133.

153 CIL X 5918 = ILS 406.

154 Respectively CIL IX 4680 = ILS 7484 and CIL VI 1885. For apparitores and the oil trade see below, n. 172.

155 CIL VI 1872Google Scholar = ILS 7266.

156 Respectively CIL 1892 = ILS 1915 and Appendix no. 18. For the scabillarii see n. 118.

157 Carsioli: CIL, IX 4057.

158 Towards Praeneste: ILS 9037; CIL XIV = ILS 1571; and cf. CIL VI 1881Google Scholar (3 miles out along the Via Praenestina). Ager Tusculanus: CIL XIV 2520–2. Cora CIL X 6522 = ILS 1904.

159 CIL VI 1833Google ScholarC. He was ‘sacerdos Geni Luci nostri censoris’, that is the consul of 12 B.C., L. Volusius Q,.f. Saturninus, triumvir centuriis equitum legendis censoria potestate.

160 App. no. 18. The interpretation is that of Mommsen, , St. R. III pp. 276–7Google Scholar. For the scabillarii n. 118; and on the importance of the tribes, above, sections II–III and n. 68.

161 CIL VI 1941, 6375Google Scholar, 32307 = ILS 4977. This is probably also the position of VI 3703 = 30978. For public and private apparitores, and the intermediate positions, see pp. 139 and 143 and n. 84.

162 The salary, however, was less high than that of a lictor; Bruns7 28, 11. 62–3. This may be a case of a type of post which became more popular and thereby won a higher status than it had had at first. The duties were perhaps physical and therefore less onerous than those of lietors. For special seats in the theatre for different types of viator, Tacitus, , Ann. XVI 12Google Scholar; and for the munus of being viator of a tribe, cf. n. 68 above.

163 The date is deduced from the fact that a late second-century member of this decuria does not describe it as ‘equestris’; App. no. 13. From his case and others it is clear that men who held viatorial decuriae were quite often approaching the resources of money and patronage necessary for equestrian status. For honorific titles for decuriae, cf. n. 127. We have only five examples of viatores who attended the emperor. One is Tiberian (CIL III p. 6589 = ILS 1920); the name Apusceius, (CIL VI 1916)Google Scholar dates another early; two are undatable (VI 1921a and 1926) and one is an interesting transitional case, datable to the reign of Nero, where an important imperial freedman is described as a viator of the emperor (CIL VI 1921Google Scholar). For viatores in the familia Caesaris, Weaver, pp. 261–2, 274–5; for the parallel case of praecones, n. 125.

164 CIL 32308 = ILS 1921 with VI 1919 (I. Faenius Donatus); CIL XIV 373 = ILS 6141 (P. Licinius Herodes).

165 Meiggs, op. cit. (n. 6), p. 210.

166 CIL XIV 169 = ILS 6172; AE 1955. 177. Compare the munus of M. Consius Cerinthus, below p. 165 and cf. n. 252.

167 Also of approximately this date, because of nomenclature, and probably also of these circumstances, are Lucanus, C. Avillius Ligurius, priest of Isis, CIL VI 466Google Scholar = ILS 1930 and Augendus, C. Artorius Iulius, CIL VI 1928Google Scholar. Few details of their careers are, however, given.

168 CIL XIV 3544 = ILS 3416. Rufus is spectacular as the only man recorded as having held no higher decuria than that of viator and a position in the militiae equestres. The Alexandrian praefectus statorum, CIL III 6589 = ILS 1920 is only slightly similar. For apparitores and military posts see pp. 157–59 and nn. 12 and 182–211. Statores are a more military kind of lictor.

169 CIL XIV 2940. For the duumvir CIL XIV 3020, cf. R. van Deman Magoffin, A Study of the Topography and Municipal History of Praeneste, 1908, p. 101.

170 CIL VI 1936 = ILS 1929 cf. above, n. 20.

171 CIL VI 1923.

172 CIL VI 1935 = ILS 7489, who is also known from olive-oil amphoras of type Dressel 20 (of the mid-second century A.D.) from Monte Testaccio: CIL XV 3943–9. Panciera, S., MAAR XXVI, 1980, p. 242Google Scholar, publishes another viator and apparitor Augustorum with precisely the same connections. For another apparitorial [dif]fusor olearius see n. 154; the involvement of provincial negotiatores in the decuriae is a striking phenomenon. For apparitores and Spain see below, n. 216–17.

173 CIL VI 1926Google Scholar.

174 CIL VI 1924Google Scholar (10,000 HS is the cost of the tomb); App. no. 25. 50,000 HS; App. no. 11.

175 The imperial cult; AE 1897. 11, from Doclea. No other apparitor from a Dalmatian town is known. For more on religion and the apparitores, see section VIII.

176 Cf. nn. 144–6, 168, 175.

177 Salernum, , CIL X 531Google Scholar = ILS 3593; Affilae, XIV 3443 = ILS 1922; Fabrateria Vetus, VI 1838 = ILS 2727; Sinuessa, , CIL VI 1808Google Scholar = ILS 1898.

178 ILS 9039.

179 CIL XI 3613 = ILS 5052; the benefaction consists of games given by various freedmen including a viator consulum.

180 CIL XI 3872 = ILS 189. He is described as Augustalis primus. The date is A.D. 32–3.

181 I have counted 34 who certainly becomes equites; there is a strong case for adding CIL VI 32267, who was sacerdos Laurens Lavinas and left HS 100,000 for building his funerary monument. These amount to some 18 per cent of all known scribes, of whom we know of about 185 from some 155 inscriptions.

182 The figure of 23 does not include AE 1920. 75, ‘veteranus leg. V Gal.’ at Pisidian Antioch and 'scriba q.’ Despite H. Dessau, Ramsay Studs., 1923, p. 136 f., he is a colonist and therefore almost certainly an official of the colonia. See B. M. Levick, Roman Colonies in Southern Asia Minor, 1967, p. 74, n. 3. In the count of 17 I do not include the military posts of D. Severius, in Egypt, CIL IX 3083 = ILS 2699, of whom more below. One might also observe Iustus, C. Iulius, CIL VI 1843Google Scholar = 1883, ‘defunctus in provincia Britannia’, and perhaps therefore on military service there. The procurators are Hermogenes, M. Aurelius, CIL XIV 5340Google Scholar, cf. 4523, Pflaum no. 352; Q. Petronius Melior, App. no. 14; and T. Iulius Saturninus, AE 1934. 107 etc., Pflaum no. 174. These three will be referred by Pflaum's numbers in what follows.

183 Of the more prominent ‘military’ equestrians Devijver A 31, C. Aelius Domitianus, App. no. 16, honoured by M. Aurelius; Paternus, A. AtiniusCIL VI 1838Google Scholar = ILS 2727, honoured probably by Trajan or Hadrian. Of the ‘civilian’ equestrians, Rectus, L. Aemilius, CIL II 3424Google Scholar (cf. 5941) = ILS 6953–4, honoured by Hadrian; L. Marius Doryphorus, App. no. 15; Hermogenes, C. Domitius, CIL XIV 353Google Scholar = ILS 6148, cf. XIV 4642, honoured probably by Hadrian. Ti. Claudius Helvius Secundus, AE 1925. 44, ‘adlectus a divo Nerva in VI decurias’, should also be noticed in this context; cf. n. 49.

184 The only ‘military’ case is App. no. 19, P. Aelius Agathoclianus, who was only praefectus fabrum and whose other decuria, the pullaria, was unusual anyway. The other two cases are L. Marius Doryphorus (App. no. 15) and Philippus, P. Martius, CIL XIV 169Google Scholar = ILS 6172.

185 Tribunician scribes are often forgotten in the literature on these equites, but five of our certain equites belonged to that decuria.

186 Very little has been written on this post; see Mommsen, p. 368. The articles in PW and the Dizionario Epigrafico are negligible. Other apparitores with military overtones include the accensi velati and the obscure statores.

187 CIL V 1883Google Scholar (Concordia) and X 4832 (Rufrae).

188 CIL VI 999 = 31221.

189 E.g. CIL VI 2804 = 32479; 37778.

190 Vitruvius I Pr. 2.

191 The main treatment is Thielscher, P., PW IX A 1, 1961, cols. 427 f.Google Scholar, which advances the praefectus fabrum view.

192 B. Dobson, ‘The Praefectus Fabrum in the Early Principate’, in Britain and Rome, Essays E. Birley, 1966, p. 61 f.

193 Bruns7, 12 ch. 127.

194 On Vitruvius' poetical overtones, Thielscher, art. cit. (n. 191), cols. 431–2; if he is Mamurra that works well too, see T. P. Wiseman, Cinna the Poet, 1974, p. 37, n. 79.

195 For another apparitor favoured by Octavia, her freedman Auctus, CIL VI 8881 = ILS 1877.

196 CIL, VI 2725 = 37189. This man's previous career was with the praetorians; no doubt he represents a step of the process by which these concerns were removed from the decuria (which of course continued to exist) and transferred to the professional military.

197 Architecti of decemviri under the Rullan lex agraria. Cicero de leg. agr. II 13, 32; of curatores aquarum, Frontinus, Aq. 100; cf. Martial, cit., n. 77.

198 Dobson, art. cit. (n. 192).

199 For the post of tribunus militum a populo, J. Suohlati, Junior Officers of the Roman Army, 1955, p. 41 f. The appointment of military tribunes supra numerum by Claudius (Suet. Cl. 25. 1) is a similar development: in this case it was recognised from the start that the post was only titular.

200 Aelius Domitianus and Claudius Helvius Secundus. For references see n. 182 above. Domitianus was praefectus fabrum Romae, an entirely honorific post: Dobson, art. cit. (n. 192), p. 65.

201 E.g. App. no. 4, T. Culciscius T.f. Vol., scriba aedilium curulium, praefectus fabrum (from the area of the Campo dei Fiori in Rome, not used as a necropolis after the Augustan age); VI 2108, Cn. Ricinius Cn. f. Pup. Persa, scriba, tribunus militum (from Lanuvium); VI 1837, C. Appidius Proculus, scriba aedilium curulium, praefectus fabrum. Also CIL VI 1806, 1817Google Scholar.

202 T. Sabidius T.f. Pal. Maximus, App. no. 23: he was curator fani Herculis Victoris, patron of the town, and received free public burial.

203 Publilianus, C. Vibius, CIL XIV 3548Google Scholar = ILS 2706. He is no. 386–7 in Suohlati cit. (n. 199), but it seems hard to date him before A.D. 14. The cult of Hercules Victor, the principal one at Tibur, is an important focus for the loyalties and activities of much of the southern part of the Roman region. Nearly a dozen Tiburtine apparitores are known, and they are a particularly good example of the way in which these posts help unify the Roman region and link it with the capital; see below, section VII.

204 Messalinianus, T. Statilius, CIL VI 1850Google Scholar = ILS 1885.

205 Severus, D. Severius, CIL IX 3083Google Scholar = ILS 2699. For the prefecture, Meyer, P., Hermes 32, 1897, p. 487 fGoogle Scholar. Cf. above, n. 168.

206 Maximus, Q. Papirius, CIL VI 1822Google Scholar = ILS 1893.

207 Gavius Capita Maximianus, AE 1975. 375.

208 AE 1925. 44. The others; Aelius Domitianus and Atinius Paternus (above, n. 183); Bassus, M. Valerius, CIL VI 2165Google Scholar; Paulus, Claudius, CIL XIV 3625Google Scholar; M. Servilius Eunicus, ILS 8859; the anonymous of CIL XIV 188, cf. CIL XIV, 2, p. 613.

209 Pflaum no. 174.

210 Pflaum no. 201. Pflaum's view that Melior had only one military post because he was rather old is based on the idea that to be scriba quaestorius sexprimus princeps you had to be senior by birth of the sexprimi. There is no justification for this in the evidence (only CIL VI 1805 = ILS 1890 and CIL VI 32279 are parallels) and it seems more likely that it is yet another honorific graduation within the ordo scribarum.

211 Pflaum no. 352, M. Aurelius Hermogenes, the last equestrian procurator to record his militiae equestres.

212 This point is not brought out sufficiently clearly by Mommsen's account, pp. 346–7.

213 It should be noticed that most of the freedmen librarii are quite early: this grade, like most, gains in status. From the mid first century A.D. notice too C. Stertinius C. 1. Orpex, scriba librarius, a very generous benefactor of Ephesus: I.Eph. 411, 720, 2113, 4123. He may well be connected with Stertinius Maximus Eutyches, an even greater benefactor, scriba librarius, haruspex de LX, and ἱππικὸς ‘Ρωμαίων’. Cf. nn. 25 & 144.

214 Statius Celsus: AE 1913. 20. Servilius Eunicus: ILS 8859.

215 CIL VI 32374, two cases if the text of CIL VI 1830Google Scholar is preferred to 1807; 1866 (perhaps one of these two); CIL X 4737 = ILS 1898a; CIL XIV 4642 (which may be Ostian and therefore irregular).

216 AE 1975. 19. The two recorded in Spain CIL II 2596 (not necessarily in his place of origin) and n. 217.

217 CIL II 3424 and 5941 = ILS 6953–4.

218 CIL VIII 8936.

219 AE 1925. 44.

220 AE 1913. 20.

221 AE 1935. 169 ‘quondam’ scriba librarius, a freedman of a Tiberian consular. Cf. I.Eph. 411, 720, 2113, 4123. For businessmen at Ephesus cf. above, p. 150 and n. 144.

222 CIL VI 1867Google Scholara = 32267, a freedman of Nero's mistress Acte, died at Nicomedia.

223 AE 1921. 39, recording a meeting of the consilium of the proconsul.

224 CIL X 7852 = ILS 5947 = McCrum and Woodhead, Flavians etc., no. 455, a ruling of the proconsul.

225 ILS 8859, Servilius Eunicus, honoured at Nysa.

226 Pflaum no. 174, the conductor of the Illyrican portorium, honoured up and down the northern provinces from Lugdunum to Dacia.

227 CIL VI 1843Google Scholar = ILS 1883, the eques ‘defunctus in provincia Britannia’. Cf. above, n. 182.

228 As it does of the other apparitorial grades; the praecones have no connections outside Italy; the lictores are found on duty in Sardinia, Africa, Asia and Galatia and ‘retired’ at Nicomedia, Lugdunum, Legio and Burdigala (but the latter is ‘civis urbicus’); the viatores show a man from Dalmation Doclea and employments at Alexandria and Ephesus. Not a very impressive total. For scribes on the staff of a provincial quaestor see also n. 77 above.

229 CIL VI 1858Google Scholar; but Vicetia is likely to be the home of M'. Ennius Vicetinus, CIL X 4832, since he was also a decurion there.

230 Amounting to 37 inscriptions, which account for 20 per cent of known scribes. If the nearly anonymous scribes of the fragmentary fasti (see n. 33) are discounted, these Italians account for nearly a quarter of our examples.

231 It is, however, important to include the region of the city and the coast south to Campania. Pflaum is incautious in reasoning thus, for example: ‘la charge de scriba quaestorius occupée par le père de L. Marius Perpetuus [of the same name, AE 1921. 39] nous apprend… que nous sommes en présence d'une famille de Romains de Rome’, Procurateurs, p. 411.

232 For the area south-east of Rome, Quilici, L., Collatia (Forma Italiae vol. I, 1974), pp. 45–55Google Scholar. For central south Etruria, T. W. Potter, The Changing Landscape of South Etruria, 1979, pp. 133–7.

233 ILS 1886 (Forum Clodii), CIL X 4747 = ILS 1898a (Sinuessa), CIL X 6094 = ILS 6283 (Formiae).

234 CIL X 597 = ILS 1909 (Anagnia, a special case, see p. 24 and nn. 152–3 above).

235 CIL XIV 3625 (Circeii), ILS 1892 (Cora), CIL VI 1838Google Scholar = ILS 2727 (Fabrateria), a curator kalendarii.

236 ILS 2748 (Puteoli), CIL XIV 373 = ILS 6141 (Ostia: lictorial).

237 N. 233 (Sinuessa); CIL X 4832 (Suessa, a man also, unusually, with posts at Vicetia and Saturnia, cf. n. 229); n. 235 (Faesulae and Florentia); n. 237 (Tibur); n. 237 (Formiae); n. 236 (Ostia).

238 Military overtones of the apparitores, nn. 12, 168, 182–211; for the punishment of the Bruttiani Mommsen pp. 333–4.

239 See Wiseman, op. cit. (n. 7), ch. 3.

240 This explanation seems more likely than that the inscription should commemorate merely the first time a magistrate gave such games in the town.

241 For Puteoli, see Frederiksen and D'Arms, opp. citt. (n. 6); M. W. Frederiksen, Campania (forthcoming), ch. XIV.

242 Most spectacularly the division of the city into vici and regimes; see the works cited in n. 242. The process of imitation no doubt operated on the system described above, and indeed is particularly clear in the case of buildings bearing the names of Augustus and the local notable who payed for them such as the ara Augusti Hordeoniana.

243 CIL X 515; cf. X 1724 and n. 150.

244 AE 1971. 88. The Tabula Heracleensis, cit., n. 10, joins funerary contractors with praecones in a prohibition from standing for public office.

245 On Ostia and Puteoli, Meiggs, op. cit. (n. 6), pp. 54–64; D'Arms, op. cit. (n. 6), pp. 124–5 is inclined to date the institutional changes at Ostia to the reign of Augustus, but the evidence cited in n. 247 still makes a Claudian or Neronian date more likely. The imitation was not precise; at Ostia the senior scribae were explicitly and regularly called cerarii: cf. n. 141. The Ostian lictores built a temple to Bellona; for their cult-ties at Rome, above, n. 62. Swan, M., Latomus XXIX, 1970, p. 140Google Scholar shows that Ostian magistrates had the same numbers of apparitores as Urso. At Narbo the colonia was served by a joint decuria of lictores and viatores: CIL XII 4447–8.

246 Meiggs, op. cit. (n. 6), pp. 181–2; AE 1948. 27 and NSc 1953 p. 241 for dedications by groups of apparitores; CIL XIV 409 for a patron of all these decuriae; XIV 462 for the benefaction to the different apparitores, graded according to status.

247 The cult of the Lares Augusti began in A.D. 47, and the first lustrum of the era of the collegium fabrorum tignuariorum in about A.D. 60.

248 Paternus, A. Egrilius, lictor curiatius (CIL XIV 4641)Google Scholar, probably served at Rome. (But cf. n. 150.) This was the only case considered possible by Meiggs, op. cit. (n. 6), p. 182. Other examples: XIV 353 = ILS; 6148, CIL XIV 4642, 4290 and probably 354.

249 Petronius Melior, App. no. 14. For the others, cf. n. 166 and n. 211.

250 It is, of course, always dangerous to deduce a man's origo from his place of later residence. In this case the origo matters less than the effect of the regio Romana of the settlement of men with experience of life at Rome. In any case the number of inscriptions from the area around Rome is so large that it is probably safe to assume that many of the dedicators are of local origin. Indeed Pflaum can argue from apparitorial post to Roman origin, which is going too far; above, n. 231.

251 The case is based on CIL XIV 4012, where a freedman accensus velatus (Consius Cerinthus, see above) builds a road at his expense ‘immunis cum sim’. See Diz. Epig. vol. I s.v. accensus velatus, for the view that this position entailed liability for road repairs. For the curator viae Praenestinae see n. 166.

252 AE 1964. 115, based on the brief and incomplete account of Ferrua, A., Epigraphica XXIV, 1962, p. 113 fGoogle Scholar. See also CIL XIV 4013–4 and cf. n. 251. The text reads ‘apparenti’ for ‘apparentis’ by an easy lapicidal error.

253 For the municipium Augustum Veiens see PBSR 29, 1961, p. 57 f.Google Scholar; for the Vicus Augustanus, Meiggs, op. cit. (n. 6), p. 69; the three Capenate inscriptions are CIL XI 3872, 3887, 7764.

254 Cf. above, nn. 131–2, 157–8, 166–9, 230–7.

255 CIL. XI 3805.

256 App. no. 24. The name Sufenas is rare, but for a prominent equestrian of the age of Cicero adopted by a Sufenas see Val. Max. VII 7, 2. Our Sufenas was ingenuus, but presumably of recent freedman origin. His membership of Neapolitan phratries may indicate that he had cultural connections: cf. also n. 262.

257 The basic treatment of the revival of the federal cults of old Latium is Wissowa, G., Hermes 50, 1915, p. 1Google Scholar. For the Etruscan rites, M. Torelli, Elogia Tarquiniensia, 1975, p. 192 f., cf. no. 14. A representative selection of inscriptions is to be found in ILS 5005–23. For the inclusion of Ostian Volcanus in this category see Meiggs, op. cit. (n. 6), p. 337 ff.

258 Pflaum, Procurateurs, p. 554.

259 The quote, à propos the imperial cult, is from Duthoy, R., Epigraphica 36, 1974, p. 135Google Scholar.

260 E.g. AE 1903. 337, a senior consular, ‘augur Laurens Lavinas’.

261 Meiggs, op. cit. (n. 6), p. 343.

262 Note for example the ‘Sucinianus archineaniscus’, CIL VI 2180. The gerulus of IG XIV 1082, also sacerdos Sucinianus, chose to dedicate in Greek: cf. VI 2179, and the Neapolitan connections of Sufenas Myro, n. 256. App. no. 23 for the cult of Hercules Victor, and cf. n. 203. That these posts were considered analogous to the equestrian offices is interestingly suggested by CIL VI 2161, = ILS 4955 a haruspex de LX who refers to himself as CC (= ducenarius), as if he were a procurator.

263 On creative archaism in Roman religion see North, J. A., PBSR 44, 1976, p. 1 ffGoogle Scholar.

264 There are no better illustrations of the link with Rome which these regional cults could express than CIL X 797 = ILS 5004 = Smallwood, Gaius etc. no. 257, Sp. Turranius Proculus Gellianus, ‘praefectus pro praetore iure dicundo in urbe Lavinio, pater patratus populi Laurentis foederis ex libris Sibullinis percutiendi cum populo Romano, sacrorum principiorum populi Romani Quiritium nominisque Latini quae apud Laurentes coluntur flamen Dialis, flamen Martialis, salius praesul, augur, pontifex …’ Note also the dedications made by Lavinian officials publicly in Rome; CIL VI 1047, 1066. The inscription of Consius Cerinthus (n. 252) illustrates the same point. App. nos. 14, 15, 16, 19, 24 are also relevant.

265 Livy XXII 57. Note the learned but misleading allusion to this in SHA Macrinus 7.

266 E.g. App. nos. 1, 2, 24. Note especially no. 2, lupercus Quinctialis vetus, and the parallel with the Augustales.

267 Especially Strabo V 3, 2, of Latin cities which are now ‘κτήσεις ἰδιωτῶν’.

268 Cod. Theod. XIV 1, 3, of A.D. 389. Mommsen suggested the interpretation that it is two scribes from the chief city of every province, p. 370, n. 3; the text in full is [decuriales] ‘quos binos esse ex singulis quibusque urbibus omnium provinciarum veneranda decrevit antiquitas’.

269 The best source for this idea is Tacitus, , Ann. XII 23Google Scholar, who says that Claudius was reviving an ancient custom; cf. Seneca, Brev. vit. 13, claiming that only an extension of the imperium in Italy is adequate. There is other evidence connecting the apparitores and Claudius; dedications to him by the decuriae unparalleled until the reign of Hadrian (cf. n. 59); the first apparitorial posts for important members of the familia Caesaris (cf. n. 94) and the probable introduction of apparitorial decuriae at Ostia (cf. n. 247). Compare now Griffin, M. T., CQ 32 1982, p. 404 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

270 See above, nn. 143, 172, 216–7.

271 It is worth noting the curious words of Dio in the passage quoted above, p. 134 and n. 47 ‘all the subject peoples … and the races (γένη) within the City itself; that of the lictors, and that of the scribes, and of the heralds, and so on’. Can this refer obliquely to the same practice as the Code? There is certainly more to that passage than is implied by Jones, op. cit. (n. 9), p. 158 ‘they were now recruited in the provinces’. A feeling that the rôle of viatores was to forge a link between the magistrates in the City and the populace at work in the fields is found in Festus' etymology of the word, p. 508 L. Note also the Augustan use of apparitorial posts to promote recently enfranchised peregrini; App. no. 5.

272 Note too the poorly attested junior apparitorial grades—praecones, geruli, pullarii, calatores.