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The Procurator as Civic Benefactor

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

R. P. Duncan-Jones
Affiliation:
Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Extract

The largest private donations to a municipality recorded in the Latin West are probably those which appear in an inscription from Castulo in Hispania Tarraconensis. The inscription, known only from a copy made in the sixteenth century, is very laconic; but its details are self-consistent, and its phraseology resembles that of another inscription from Castulo whose original survives. Huebner, who had to reject as forgeries many inscriptions from this town, accepted the text as genuine, and his judgement was endorsed by Dessau, who included it in his Inscripttones Latinae Selectae.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © R. P. Duncan-Jones 1974. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 The abbreviation ERE used below refers to Duncan-Jones, R., The Economy of the Roman Empire:Quantitative Studies, 1974Google Scholar. Evidence for privately donated monuments is collected in the survey of public works in Spain by Mangas, J., Hispania antiqua [Vitoria] I (1971), 105146Google Scholar. Three perpetual foundations from Spain were studied by Duncan-Jones, R. in Historia 13 (1964), 199208Google Scholar. For general studies of munificence in the West, cf. ERE 27–32, 63–237, and bibliography, p. 121, n. 3. For a list of gifts to towns by procurators in Italy and Africa, see n. 24 below.

2 CIL 11, 3270 = ILS 5513, first published by Benedictus Rhambertus, a Venetian scholar, in 1561. The tentative doubt cast on the inscription in ERE 31, n. 6 should be disregarded. For a range of gifts which has some similar features at another Spanish town, see CIL II, 1956 = ILS 5512 (from Cartima in Baetica; the donor was a ‘sacerdos perpetua et prima’). The forgeries ascribed to Castulo appear as CIL 11, 315*–343*. The parallel inscription from Castulo (AE 1958, 4) reads: L.Cor(nelio) Marullo / quod ordo Castulon(ensis) / pro liberalitate Cor(neliae) / Marullinae matris / eius quod civitatem / Castulonensium sta/tuis argenteis et epu/lo et circensib(us) decoras/set statuam ei et filio su/o posituram se decre/verat Cor(nelia) Marulli/[n]a honore accepto / d[e] pec(unia) sua poni iussit / hoc donum illius / C.Cor(nelius) Bellicus heres / d(edit) d(edicavit) / edi[tis] circensib(us). This resembles the inscription of Culleo in the use of ‘quod’ and ‘ille’, the placing of ‘epulum’, and the placing of the second reference to circus games.

3 RE, s.v. Castulo; CIL II, pp. 440 ff.; A. Schulten, Iberische Landeskunde, 1955–7, 487–8, 492, 494; Spranger, P.Zur Lokalisierung der Stadt Castulo und des Saltus Castulonensis’, Historia 7 (1958), 95112Google Scholar.

4 See p. 80 below.

5 Strabo 3, 2, 10–11. Strabo's mountain of silver is presumably identical with the ‘intrusive outcrop’ containing ‘ore, principally argentiferous galena’ about 5 miles north of Linares, in which Davies found remains of Roman and modern workings (O. Davies, Roman mines in Europe, 1935, 135).

6 Polybius 10, 38, 7.

7 See Davies (cited in n. 5); Rickard, T. A., JRS 18 (1928), 129143Google Scholar, at pp. 139–140. A photograph of the relief appears in Rostovtzeff, M., Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire,2 1957, pl. XXXV, 1, p. 212, with bibliographyGoogle Scholar.

8 Livy 24, 41, 7; Strabo 3, 3, 2.

9 CIL II, 3278; Pliny, NH 3, 25. Cf. Galsterer, H., Untersuchungen zur römischen Städtewesen auf der iberischen Halbinsel, 1971, 70.Google Scholar

10 Pliny, NH 29, 9; RE II, 1865.

11 See Clerc, M., Massalia, 19271929, 2, 281 ff.Google Scholar and pl. V; R. Busquet in Lot, F., Recherches sur la population et la superficie des cités remontants à la période gallo-romaine I, 1945, 180182Google Scholar; F. Benoit, Gallia 24 (1966), 1–20, at pp. 12–20. The wall was one block thick, measuring between 0.85 and 1.0 m (Clerc p. 285), thinner than most town walls in Gaul (Blanchet, A., Les enceintes romainesde la Gaule, 1907, 258Google Scholar). Its length is estimated at roughly 2,200 m by Lot (Lot 174), but appears from Clerc's plan to have been about 2,700 m. The enclosed area is estimated as 32½ hectares (Busquet in Lot, 182). (Beloch's estimate of 75 hectares was based on a plan now obsolete: Beloch, K. J., Bevölkentng der griechisch-römischen Welt, 1886, 487–8Google Scholar, from Desjardins, E., Géographie de la Gaule romaine 2, 1878, pl. IIIGoogle Scholar.)

12 Cicero, , Phil. 2, 48Google Scholar; CIL x, 3964; Vitruvius 7, 9, 4; Pliny, , NH 33, 118Google Scholar; 121. Enciclopedia italiana, s.v. Cinabro, Almadén; A. Schulten, op. cit. (n. 3) 515–6; RE, s.v. Sisapo. In the twelfth century the geographer Idrisi visited what were evidently the mines at Sisapo, and found mercury and cinnabar being extracted there for world-wide export by a labour force of 1,000 men (Edrisi, , Description de l'Afrique et de l'Espagne, trans. Dozy, R. and de Goeje, M. J., 1866, 265–6)Google Scholar.

13 See e.g. Solari, A., Bull. comm. arch. mun. Roma 46 (1920), 213228Google Scholar; Van Sickle, C. E., Class. Phil. 24 (1929), 7788CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Atlas Nacional de España, sheet 81, 1965; Soriano, M. Conchado y, ‘Estudio sobre vias Romanas entro el Tajo y el GuadalquivirArchivo español de Arqueologia 42 (1969), 124158Google Scholar. See Addendum.

14 See Huebner, , RE 3, 1779Google Scholar. For the regular sale of cinnabar from Sisapo at Rome in Pliny's time, see NH 33, 121.

15 Contra Forbes, R. J., Studies in ancient technology2 8, 1971, 178, 240Google Scholar. For gold, see Puny, NH 33, 99. For the use of amalgamation in Spanish mining in the Americas, cf. Braudel, F., The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, 1, 1972, 476Google Scholar. I am much indebted to Dr. M. Teich for his comments on this point.

16 From Times Atlas of the World, 1956; Mapa topográfico de España en escala de 1:50,000, 1875-; Spain 1:100,000 (War Office 1941- ). The northerly route goes from Linares to Almadén via La Carolina, Las Correderas, Almuradiel, Viso del Marqués, San Lorenzo de Calatrava, Puertollano, Brazatortas and Almadenejos. The southerly route passes through Bailen, Andujar, Marmolejo, Villanueva de Cordoba, Pozoblanco, Alcaracejos and Santa Eufemia.

17 ERE 124–5 and 152–3. The most explicit figure refers to a re-building of 15.75 miles of the Via Appia in A.D. 123, which cost HS 108,950 per mile (ILS 5875).

18 cf. ERE 46, n. 3 and 345.

19 CIL III, 607. At Thamugadi in Numidia, the area of the library, about 675 m2, was only one-third of the average area occupied by four sets of public baths at the same town (about 1,950 m2), and only one-sixth of the area of the largest of the baths (about 4,100 m2). E. Boeswillwald, R. Cagnat, A. Ballu, Titngad, une cité africaine sous l' empire romain 1905, 297–304 and 353, n. I, with pl. XXVI (Grands thermes du Sud); pl. XXXIII (Grands thermes du Nord, the largest of the four); fig. 119, p. 259 (Petits thermes du Sud); fig. 137, p. 289 (Thermes de l'Est).

20 Comparative evidence in CIL II, p. 1196.

21 cf. CIL 11, 1040; 1267; 1278; 1473; 1474; 3265. This was not the maximum: there were also silver statues of 150 and 250 pounds (CIL II, 1471; 3424). For a further list, see Mangas (cited in n. I). Pliny the Elder report s that a slave of Claudius who was dispensator in Hispania Citerior owned one silver dish weighing 500 pounds and 8 more dishes each weighing 250 pounds (NH 33, 145). Such abundance is an obvious reflection of Spain's role as a silver producer. Neither Africa nor Italy could rival this wealth of unminted metal (see ERE 94 and 164–6).

22 cf. ERE 126.

23 In the West, cf. FIRA I, no. 70 (Volubilis); AE 1948, 109 (Banasa). In the East, Dittenberger Syll.3 837 (Stratonicea); Strabo 485–6 (Gyaros); 657 (Cos); Tacitus, Ann. 2, 47 (Sardis and II other cities); 4, 13 (Cibyra, Aegium); 12, 58 (Apamea); 12, 63 (Byzantium).

24 For Castulo as part of Tarraconensis, see n. 3 above. C. H. V. Sutherland's suggestion (The Romans in Spain, 1939, 140) that Culleo was acting anomalously at Castulo in his official capacity as procurator of Baetica seems to be superfluous; the remarkable range of gifts by Culleo very strongly implies that his links with the town were those of a native, not merely those of a visiting administrator. His tenure of office in an adjoining province was evidently no more than a coincidence.

For gifts by procurators to towns in Africa and Italy, see ERE 114, 116, 226, 236; Duncan-Jones, R.PBSR 35 (1967), 147188Google Scholar, nos. 3a, 4, 7, 9, 14, 17, 19, 20; CIL v, 328; 533; 534–5; 7370; ix, 3019; x, 5392–4; 6090; xi, 2707, 7285; AE 1957, 250.

25 Hadrian's tax remission for the whole Empire with its thousands of cities (cf. ERE 245–6), which evidently covered debts accumulated over a long period, only amounted to HS 900 million in all (ILS 309; cf. Duncan-Jones, R., PBSR 32 (1964) 123146Google Scholar, at 143, n. 116).

26 For Spain see CIL II, 1573; 1957.

27 cf. e.g. ERE 155 and n. I. The HS 10 million allegedly spent on an unfinished theatre at Nicaea at a time when the town was also re-building its gymnasium may be an exception. But Pliny's information about the cost is unconfirmed hearsay about a building project whose financing appears, from the details given, to have been fairly complicated (Ep. 10, 39, 1–4; cf. ERE 77–8).

28 The re-construction of a road by a magistrate in Hispania antiqua epigraphica 971 refers to Gaul, not to Spain.

29 See n. 17.

30 This hypothesis would perhaps make it necessary to assume that the town of Castulo was liable for payment of royalties from state-owned mines located on its territory, as well as for the usual tributum levied on land and other property. Pliny mentions annual contract-payments to the state of HS 1,020,000 and HS 400,000 for two lead mines in Baetica in his day (NH 34, 165).

31 NH 29, 7–10. It is worth noticing that the most successful doctors combined almost uniquely high earning power with a relatively low social position which probably did not require really heavy personal expenditure. Nevertheless, it is only the accident that this passage in Pliny has survived which makes doctors account for two of the three biggest civic benefactions known in the West. Very few major benefactions by doctors are recorded in the abundant epigraphic evidence for gifts (cf. ERE 225, no. 461).

32 ERE pp. 31–2.

33 Philostratus, VS 548–9.

34 P. Graindor, Hérode Atticus, 1930, 179 ff.

35 IGRR 3, 804. The donor held municipal office, but nothing more. For the building, see Perkins, J. B. Ward, PBSR 22 (1955), 115123Google Scholar.

36 The total of the other gifts whose monetary value is specified (excluding distributions of sportulae, because their cost depended on the number of recipients, which is not stated) is about HS 2 million.

37 ILS 6729 (cf. 6723); 5163, 11. 23–4; Digesta 50, 2, 8 (Hermogenian). In the East: Pliny, Ep. 10, 110, 2; Dio Chrys., Or. 46, 3; cf. Plutarch, Mor. 822D–F. The C. Attius Nepos who left to Luca a property valued at HS 2½ million, of which his heirs apparently reclaimed one-quarter under the Lex Falcidia, may be another case in point (ERE 236, no. 1197). A more explicit instance, where a man left his fortune to pay for an aqueduct at Cirta and his legal heirs eventually complained, occurs in the Digest (22, 6, 9, 5; cf. ERE 229, no. 645).

38 ERE 31–2.

39 Suetonius, Vesp. 13.

40 Ann. 6, 19. Perhaps from Corduba, where one of his slaves was buried (CIL II, 2269). A procurator montis Mariani, and a procurator massae Marianae, both imperial freedmen, are attested (CIL II, 1179; XIV, 52). Cf. Davies (cited in n. 5), 9, n. 10.

Another immensely rich Spanish magnate whose property ultimately devolved to the Emperor (presumably by bequest rather than by expropriation) was the consul L. Mummius Niger Q. Valerius Vegetus Severinus Caucidius Tertullus. Vegetus's wealth enabled him to build a private aqueduct nearly six miles long to supply his villa near Viterbo (ILS 5771 and add.; PIR1 M 515); and the administration of the Spanish assets of his family occupied at least three equestrian procurators, whose periods of office Pflaum dates to A.D. 164, 180/192 and 193. In view of the length of time for which the ‘kalendarium Vegetianum in Hispania’ was evidently in existence, it was probably a going concern, rather than a series of assets which these officials were engaged in liquidating, as Pflaum suggested. Vegetus' family was connected with Iliberris, near Granada (CIL II, 2077); Vegetus was evidently related to the wife of Herodes Atticus (PIR1M 515). For the identification of Vegetus, and the date at which the ‘kalendarium’ came into existence (probably in the early 160's), see H.G. Pflaum, Les carrères procuratoriemtes équestres, 1960–1, 637–8, 1049 and 400. See Addendum.

41 For the salary, Pflaum, op. cit. 1049. For senatorial fortunes, cf. ERE 4–5; 18; 242; 343–4.

42 For the recruitment of men from Tarraconensis into the Senate from the time of Galba onwards, see R. Syme, Tacitus, 1958, 592.

43 ‘Arrianus Maturus Altinatium est princeps … Caret ambitu; ideo se in equestri gradu tenuit, cum facile possit ascendere altissimum’ Pliny, Ep. 3, 2, 2–4. Pliny also mentions ‘Minicius Macrinus, equestris ordinis princeps, quia nihil altius voluit’ (1, 14, s). Like the Gaul referred to in n. 44, Macrinus refused adlection to the Senate.

44 ILS 6998; Cassius Dio 60, 29, 2.

45 Though the prejudice against industrialists in the Senate could overlook interests in brick and pottery manufacture (cf. H. Bloch, I bolli laterizi e la storia edilizia romana, 1947, 337, and Wiseman, T. P., Mnemosyne ser. 4, 16 (1963), 275283CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

46 ‘Torius’ is rare and appears in no other Spanish inscription, it seems. We find elsewhere M. Torius Victor, a centurion in Egypt in A.D. 157, later legionary prefect at Mainz; a Tori(a) at Rome; Toria Agrippina at Pola; Toria Olympis at Verona; and L. Tori(us) L.I. Pamp(hilus) at Caere (AE 1958, 61; CIL vi, 8367; y, 240; 3395; xi, 3687). The cognate form ‘Thorius’ is better known, with 13 examples at Rome (CIL vi, index), and instances in Italy at Patavium, Verona, Carsioli, Puteoli, Ulubrae, Bovillae, Caere, Populonium and Lanuvium (CIL v, 3033; 3395; 3775; ix, 4070; x, 3006; 6493; 7316; xi, 3687, 7602; 7247; xiv, 2108, Cicero, de fin. 2, 63). The absence of record outside Italy suggests that Culleo's family might have been of Italian descent. Nevertheless, the degree of involvement in the affairs of the town shown in his gifts must imply that Culleo regarded Castulo as his patria. See Addendum.

47 Livy 24, 41 ff.

48 Pflaum, who does not discuss the inscription, dates it to die third century (Pflaum, op. cit. n. 40, 1049).

49 ILS 5531; 6147, with R. Meiggs, Roman Ostia, 1960, 493–500. Cf. also ILS 6297 = ILLRP 667.

50 cf. ERE 5 and 18, n. 5.

51 See Encyclopedia dell'arte antica, 1958–66, s.v. Acquedotto (G. Carettoni); Anfiteatro (with geographical list of amphitheatres by G. Forni).

52 cf. Pliny, Ep. 10, 39, 3 (referring to the theatre at Nicaea): ‘huic theatro ex privatorum pollicitationibus multa debentur, ut basilicae circa, ut porticus supra caveam.’ See also ERE 92–3; 114, no. 16; 140, n. 5; 160–2; 224, no. 443; 226, no. 493. For Spain, see CIL II, 3364; 5166.

53 There are no privately given amphitheatres in Spain, where amphitheatres of any kind are few in comparison with the number known in Italy and Africa (see n. 51). Amphitheatres given by single private donors in Italy: ILS 5628; 5629; 2689; 6589; AE 1937, 64 and 1938, no; 1957, 250; Eck, W.Senatoren von Vespasian bis Hadrian, 1970, 97–8Google Scholar.

For private gifts of aqueducts or parts of aqueducts in Spain, see CIL II, 1614; 2343; 3240; 3280; 3361; 6145; 3663; 5961. The donor at Aurgi (Jaén) in Tarraconensis gave public baths and 37 hectares of woodland to provide them with fuel, as well as the aqueduct which supplied the baths (CIL II, 3361 = ILS 5688).

54 Estimates from remains, using comparisons with buildings whose cost is known, should thus reveal some further large-scale donations like those of Culleo (cf. ERE 77 and n. 3).

55 cf. Apuleius, Apol. 87; Suetonius, Tib. 37, 3; Plutarch, Mor. 822A. A donor at Oretum in Tarraconensis built a bridge for HS 80,000 ‘petente ordine et populo’ (ILS 5901; cf. examples in W. Liebenam, Städteverwaltung im römischen Kaiserreiche, 1900, 248, n. I).

ADDENDUM. R. Contreras de la Paz (in a discussion of the Culleo inscription in Oretania no. 20 (May–August 1965) 63–96, which was inaccessible when this article was written) offers suggestions about the route of the Castulo-Sisapo road. He dates the inscription to the first half of the first century A.D., and draws attention to L. Thorius Balbus, the legate of Metellus killed in Spain in 79 B.C., and to T. Torius, a legionary commander from Italica active in Spain in 48 B.C. (RE VIA, 345–6, nos. 3–4). The plan of the walls of Castulo that he reproduces from a nineteenth-century manuscript is tantalising, because it lacks a scale.

A fourth procurator kalendarii Vegetiani, who evidently belongs to the reign of Septimius Severus, appears in two inscriptions found at Italica in 1972 (Carto, A. M., Habis 4 (1973), 311–8Google Scholar).