The Aragua petition — petition of the villagers and reply of Philip the Arab

The Aragua petition — petition of the villagers and reply of Philip the Arab — edition

The imperial reply Imperator Caesar Marcus Iulius Philippus Pius Felix Augustus et Marcus Iulius Philippus nobilissimus Caesar Marco Aurelio Eglecto per Didymum militem centenarium frumentarium proconsule vir clarissimus perspecta fide eorum quae adlegastis si quid iniuriose geratur ad sollicitudinem suam revocabit vale

The petition Αὐτοκράτορι Κέσαρι Μ Ἰουλίῳ Φιλίππῳ Εὐσεβεῖ Εὐτυχεῖ Σεβαστῷ κὲ Μ Ἰουλίῳ Φιλίππῳ ἐπιφανεστάτῳ Κέσαρι δέησις παρὰ Αὐρηλίου Ἐγλέκτου νου τῶν Ἀραγουηνῶν παροίκων κὲ γεωργῶν τῶν ὑμετέρων τοῦ ἐν τῇ Ἀππι ανῇ δήμου κοινοῦ Μοιτεανῶν Σοηνῶν τῶν κατὰ Φρυγίαν τόπων διὰ τοῦ φρουμενταρίου στρατιώτου πάντων ἐν τοῖς μακαριωτάτοις ὑμῶν καίροις εὐσεβέστατοι κὲ ἀλυ πότατοι τῶν πώποτε βασιλέων ἤρεμον καὶ γαληνὸν τὸν βίον διαγόντων πάσης πο νηρίας κὲ διασεισμῶν πεπαυμένων μόνοι ἡμεῖς ἀλλότρια τῶν εὐτυχεστάτων καιρῶν πάσχοντες τήνδε τὴν ἱκετείαν ὑμεῖν προσάγομεν ἔχει δὲ τὸ τῆς διηγ ήσεως ἐν τούτοις χωρίον ὑμέτερόν ἐσμεν ἱερώτατοι Καίσαρες δῆ μος ὁλόκληρος οἱ καταφεύγοντες κὲ γεινόμενοι τῆς ὑμετέρας οὐσίας γεώργοι δια σειόμεθα δὲ παρὰ τὸ ἄλογον κὲ παραπρασσόμεθα ὑπʼ ἐκείνων οἷς σώζειν τὸ δημό σιον ὀφίλει μεσόγειοι γὰρ τυγχάνοντες κὲ μήτε παρὰ στρατοπέδοις ὄντες πάσ χομεν ἀλλότρια τῶν ὑμετέρων μακαριωτάτων καίρων διοδεύοντες γὰρ τὸ Ἀππιανῶν κλίμα παραλιμπάνοντες τὰς λεωφόρους ὁδοὺς οἵ τε στρα τιῶται κὲ δυνάσται τῶν προυχόντων κατὰ τὴν πόλιν Ἀππίαν κὲ δοῦλοι ὑ μέτεροι ἐπεισερχόμενοι κὲ καταλιμπάνοντες τὰς λεωφόρους ὁδοὺς κὲ ἀπὸ τῶν ἔργων ἡμᾶς ἀφίσταντες κὲ τοῦς ἀροτῆρας βόας ἀνγαρεύοντες τὰ μηδὲν ὀφει λόμενα αὐτοῖς παραπράσσουσιν κὲ συμβαίνει οὐ τὰ τυχόντα ἡμᾶς ἐκ τοῦ τοι ούτου ἀδικεῖσθαι διασειομένους περὶ ὧν ἁπάντων ἤδη ἐγράφη πρὸς τὸ σόν ὦ Σεβαστέ μέγεθος ὁπότε τὴν ἔπαρχον διεῖπες ἀρχὴν ἐμφαίνοτες τὸ γεγο νός ὅπως περὶ τούτων ἐκεινήθη σου ἡ θειότης ἡ ἀντιγραφὴ δηλοῖ ἡ

The earlier rescript ἐντεταγμένη quae libello conplexi estis ad proconsulem misimus qui dabit operam ne diutiuis querellis locus sit

The petition resumed ἐπειδὴ οὖν οὐδὲν ὄφελος ἡμεῖν ἐκ ταύτης τῆς δεήσεως γέγονε συνβέ βηκεν δὲ ἡμᾶς κατὰ τὴν ἀγροικίαν τὰ μὴ ὀφειλόμενα παραπράσσεσθαι ἐ πενβαινόντων τινῶν κὲ συνπατούντων ἡμᾶς παρὰ τὸ δίκαιον ὡσαύτως δ ὲ ὑπὸ τῶν Κεσαριανῶν οὐ τὰ τυχόντα διασείεσθαι καὶ τὰ ἡμέτερα ἐξ αναλίσκεσθαι κὲ τὰ χωρία ἐρημοῦσθαι κὲ ΛΛμεσόγειοι γὰρ τυγχάνοντες καὶ οὐ παρὰ τὴν ὁδὸν κατοικοῦντες δυνάμενα ταύτη ΕΜΙΧ

The Aragua petition — petition of the villagers and reply of Philip the Arab — translation

The imperial reply (ll. 1–6)

The Emperor Caesar Marcus Iulius Philippus Pius Felix Augustus and Marcus Iulius Philippus, most noble Caesar, to Marcus Aurelius Eglectus, through Didymus, soldier, centenarius, frumentarius: the proconsul, the most distinguished gentleman, when the reliability of the things you have alleged has been examined, will — if anything is being done wrongfully — recall it to his own attention. Farewell.

The petition (ll. 7–16)

To the Emperor Caesar Marcus Iulius Philippus Pius Felix Augustus and Marcus Iulius Philippus, most illustrious Caesar — a petition from Aurelius Eglectus, son of […]nus, on behalf of the Aragueni, the resident-tenants and farmers — your own people — of the community of the Moiteani and Soeni, in the district of Appia among the regions of Phrygia, [delivered] through the [frumentarius] soldier. While all men, in your most blessed times — you who are the most pious and the most free from affliction of all the kings there ever were — pass a quiet and untroubled life, with every wickedness and every extortion brought to an end, we alone, suffering things alien to these most fortunate times, bring this supplication before you. The substance of our account lies in this. We are yours, most sacred Caesars — a whole community, taking refuge with you, and become the farmers of your estate.

The petition (ll. 17–27)

And we are shaken down, beyond all reason, and subjected to illegal exactions — by the very men whose duty it is to safeguard the public good. For though we lie inland, and are nowhere near the military camps, we suffer things alien to your most blessed times. [Travellers], passing through the territory of the Appiani and turning off the highroads — soldiers, and the henchmen of the powerful men in the city of Appia, and your own slaves — come in upon us, abandon the highroads, drag us away from our work, requisition our plough-oxen, and extort from us payment for things in no way owed to them; and so it comes about that we are wronged, and shaken down, in no ordinary measure. Concerning all of which a letter was already written to your Majesty, O Augustus, at the time when you governed the prefecture, setting out what had happened; and how your Divinity was moved on these matters, the rescript inserted here makes plain:

The earlier rescript (ll. 28–29)

‘The things which you have set out in your petition, we have sent to the proconsul, who will see to it that there is no longer any room for complaints.’

The petition resumed (ll. 30–37)

Since, then, no benefit at all has come to us from this petition, and it has come about that, in our farmland, illegal exactions continue to be made of things not owed — certain men breaking in upon us and trampling us down against all justice; and likewise that we are shaken down, in no ordinary measure, by the imperial agents, the Caesariani, and our substance [consumed], and our lands made desolate, and … For, lying inland, and not dwelling beside the road … [here the petition breaks off into fragments].

The Aragua petition — petition of the villagers and reply of Philip the Arab — commentary

The villagers cut the emperor's answer first, at the head of the stone, in Latin — the prize the whole monument exists to display. It is the reply to this petition: the emperors Philip the Arab and his son tell the petitioner, Aurelius Eglectus, through the soldier who carried the appeal, that the proconsul of Asia will look into the matter — once ‘the reliability of what you have alleged has been examined’.

The imperial names here were chiselled out on the stone: Philip and his son suffered damnatio memoriae after their fall, and an editor restores the erased letters. The reply is cautious — not a ruling, but an instruction to investigate.

The Greek petition (δέησις) opens by naming its authors precisely: the Aragueni — the villagers of Aragua — described as resident-tenants and farmers ‘of yours’: they work an imperial estate, and that is the ground of their claim on the emperor.

The appeal is built on a sharp contrast. All the empire, the petition says, enjoys peace in Philip's ‘most blessed times’, with every extortion at an end — ‘we alone’ suffer things that have no place in so fortunate an age. The villagers are ‘a whole community’ taking refuge with the emperor as the farmers of his own land.

Now the grievance. Aragua lies inland, far from any military camp — it should be safe. Yet soldiers, the henchmen of the powerful men of the nearby city of Appia, and the emperor's own slaves turn aside from the highroads, come onto the village's land, drag the farmers from their work, requisition their plough-oxen by forced service, and extort payments for things not owed. It is the same abuse of requisition the corpus tracks — here reaching a village that lay nowhere near a road.

And the petition makes a striking point: this is not the first appeal. The villagers had already written to Philip ‘when you governed the prefecture’ — that is, before he was emperor, when he was praetorian prefect — and they now quote, in Latin, the rescript that earlier appeal had won.

Embedded in the Greek petition, and quoted verbatim in its original Latin, is the rescript the villagers had obtained on their first appeal. It is brief: the petition has been forwarded ‘to the proconsul, who will see to it that there is no longer room for complaints’.

The petitioners quote it for a reason. The whole second petition turns on the fact that this promise was not kept — that the proconsul's remedy never came, and the extortion went on. The quoted rescript is the evidence for their charge of broken faith.

The petition resumes with its hardest sentence: ‘since no benefit at all has come to us from this petition’. The earlier rescript changed nothing. The illegal exactions continue; men break in and ‘trample us down’; and now the Caesariani — the emperor's own fiscal agents — are named among the plunderers, the lands are being left ‘desolate’.

Here the stone breaks into fragments. The petition's close, and the rest of the dossier, are lost — but enough survives to show the pattern these third-century village petitions all share: a community that appeals, is promised relief, is not relieved, and appeals again.

Critical apparatus [Iul(ius) P]hi[lippus … et M(arcus)] — The imperial names of Philip the Arab and his son were chiselled out on the stone — a damnatio memoriae after their fall in AD 249. The erased letters are restored from the standard editions; the same erasure affects the Greek names in lines 7–8, there printed in their place. per Didymum mili(tem) cen(tenarium) frum(entarium) — The petition was carried, and the reply brought back, by Didymus — a soldier of the rank of centenarius and a frumentarius, a member of the corps used by the emperors as couriers and agents. [v]a[l]e — The Latin reply closes with the chancery's vale, 'farewell'. The reading is restored letter by letter; the standard editions mark it as not wholly secure. Μ Ἰουλίῳ Φιλίππῳ … Μ Ἰουλίῳ Φιλίππῳ — In the Greek address the names of the two emperors stand in rasura — erased on the stone, but still legible, and printed here in their place. The petition keeps its vulgar spellings throughout (Κέσαρι for Καίσαρι, κὲ for καί, ὀφίλει for ὀφείλει), given verbatim. τῶν Ἀραγουηνῶν παροίκων κὲ γεωργῶν τῶν ὑμετέρων — 'The Aragueni, your resident-tenants and farmers' — the villagers define themselves at once as the emperor's own people, dwellers and cultivators on an imperial estate. It is the ground of their right to petition him. διασεισμῶν — Διασεισμός — extortion, the 'shake-down' of subjects by those in power (Latin concussio). The verb διασείεσθαι, 'to be shaken down', recurs through the petition as the name of the whole abuse. ὁπότε τὴν ἔπαρχον διεῖπες ἀρχήν — 'When you governed the prefecture' — the villagers remind Philip that they had appealed to him once before, in the days when he was praetorian prefect under Gordian III, before his own accession. The earlier rescript follows. quae libello conplexi estis ad proconsulem misimus — The earlier rescript, quoted verbatim in its original Latin within the Greek petition: the case has been forwarded 'to the proconsul, who will see to it that there is no longer room for complaints'. The petition's whole point is that this promise was not kept. ὑπὸ τῶν Κεσαριανῶν — The Caesariani — the emperor's own fiscal agents, the freedmen and slaves of the imperial household in financial service. The resumed petition names them among the plunderers of the village. [---] — The petition breaks off here into fragments (lines 34–37): only scattered words survive — 'lying inland', 'not dwelling beside the road' — and the close of the dossier is lost.

Editions and commentary Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum III 14191. W. Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae 519. Inscriptiones Graecae ad Res Romanas Pertinentes IV 598. S. Riccobono, Fontes Iuris Romani Antejustiniani I, no. 107. Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua X 114. T. Hauken, Petition and Response: An Epigraphic Study of Petitions to Roman Emperors 181–249 (Bergen 1998), p. 145 (the Aragua petition edited and discussed). H. Freis, Historische Inschriften zur römischen Kaiserzeit, no. 145; L'Année épigraphique 1898, 102. Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss–Slaby, EDCS-30000349 (the machine-readable text followed here).