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Diocletian's Price-Edict at Ptolemais (Cyrenaica)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Giacomo Caputo  and
Richard Goodchild
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Extract

Introduction.—The systematic exploration of Ptolemais (modern Tolmeita), in Cyrenaica, began in 1935 under the auspices of the Italian Government, and under the direction of the first-named writer. The general programme of excavation took into consideration not only the important Hellenistic period, which gave the city its name and saw its first development as an autonomous trading-centre, but also the late-Roman age when, upon Diocletian's reforms, Ptolemais became capital of the new province of Libya Pentapolis and a Metropolitan See, later occupied by Bishop Synesius.

As one of several starting-points for the study of this later period, there was selected the area first noted by the Beecheys as containing ‘heaps of columns’, which later yielded the monumental inscriptions of Valentinian, Arcadius, and Honorius, published by Oliverio. Here excavation soon brought to light a decumanus, running from the major cardo on the west towards the great Byzantine fortress on the east. Architectural and other discoveries made in 1935–36 justified the provisional title ‘Monumental Street’ assigned to this ancient thoroughfare. In terms of the general town-plan, which is extremely regular, this street may be called ‘Decumanus II North’, since two rows of long rectangular insulae separate it from the Decumanus Maximus leading to the West Gate, still erect. The clearing of the Monumental Street and its frontages revealed the well-known Maenad reliefs, attributed to the sculptor Callimachus, a late-Roman triple Triumphal Arch, and fragments of monumental inscriptions similar in character to those previously published from the same area.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 1-2 , November 1955 , pp. 106 - 115
Copyright
Copyright © Giacomo Caputo and Richard Goodchild 1955. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 The consolidation of the standing monuments was an essential feature of the work then carried out, cf. Caputo, Giacomo, ‘La protezione dei monumenti di Tolemaide negli anni 1935–1942,’ Quaderni di Archeologia della Libia III (1954), 33–66Google Scholar. For a bibliography of Ptolemais, see Enciclopedia Italiana s.v. ‘Tolemaide’.

2 Previously the locality had been the dependent port of Barcae (El-Merj).

3 There is little doubt that the formation of the two provinces of Libya Superior (Pentapolis) and Libya Inferior took place under Diocletian; but the exact date of the transfer of the capital of Pentapolis from Cyrene to Ptolemais remains uncertain. It had certainly occurred before Synesius became Bishop of Ptolemais (c. 410); and an unpublished inscription found by Caputo appears to be a dedication to the family of Constantine by ‘civitates pro[vinciae? Libyae Pentapolis]’, set up, presumably, in the new capital.

4 F. W. and Beechey, H. W., Proceedings of the Expedition to explore the northern coast of Africa (London, 1828), Plan opp. p. 39Google Scholar.

5 Oliverio, G., Documenti Antichi dell'Africa Italiana (Bergamo, 1936) 11, 2, pp. 251–3Google Scholar (= SEG IX, 364–5).

6 This is the fortress on the face of which was inscribed the text of The Decree of Anastasius (SEG IX, 356), now in the Louvre, (cf. JRS XLIII, 74Google Scholar, and pl. VII, 5–6).

7 Recent air-photographs reveal the ‘chess-board’ planning and justify the use of the terms decumanus and cardo, although the former run WSW-ENE.

8 Caputo, G., Lo scultore del grande bassorilievo con la Danza delle Menadi in Tolemaide di Cirenaica (Rome, 1948Google Scholar).

9 Caputo, G., Atti III Congresso Studi Coloniali (Firenze, 1937), 133–7Google Scholar.

10 These new inscriptions require more detailed discussion than is possible here and will be published elsewhere.

11 Italian Touring Club guide ‘Libia’ (Milan, 1937); mentioned also by Guarducci, in Rend. Pont. Accad. Arch. 16 (1940), 11–24Google Scholar. cf. the remarks of Degrassi, in Riv. Fil. Class. LXVIII (1940), 143–4Google Scholar.

12 By good fortune the Edict fragments survived the disturbances of 1941, when Tolmeita Museum was sacked and a number of pieces of sculpture were stolen. The fragments were moved to Cyrene for further study during the winter of 1954–55, when the composition of column 1 of the major slab was worked out.

13 Mommsen, Th. and Blümner, H., Der Maximaltarif des Diocletian (Berlin, 1893Google Scholar, hereafter styled M-B); Elsa Rose Graser, Appendix to Frank‘s, Tenney Economic Survey of Ancient Rome (Baltimore, 1940) vol. v, 305Google Scholar, with translation. To the fragments of chap, XIX included in the above works must now be added the Latin one from Synnada, published by Macpherson, I. W. in JRS XLII (1952), 72Google Scholar, and the new Greek fragment from Delphi published by Bingen, in BCH LXXVIII (1954), 349CrossRefGoogle Scholar (see postscript, p. 114).

14 It should be noted that Latin was being used, in some of the public inscriptions of Ptolemais, even in the fourth century a.d. Possibly the new status of the city as a provincial capital brought about a revival of Romanità.

15 Guarducci, M., in Rend. Pont. Accad. Arch. 16 (1940), 11–24Google Scholar; cf. Degrassi, A. in Riv. Fil. Class. LXVIII (1940), 143–4Google Scholar, and Bingen, J. in BCH LXXVIII (1954), 349 (n. 2)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.