Hadrian to Aphrodisias — the letter on the tax on nails — edition αὐτοκράτωρ Καῖσαρ θεοῦ Τραϊανοῦ Παρθικοῦ υἱός θεοῦ Νέρουα υἱωνός Τραϊανὸς Ἁδριανὸς Σεβαστός ἀρχιερεὺς μέγιστος δημαρχικῆς ἐξουσίας τὸ γ´ Ἀφροδεισιέων ἄρχουσι βουλῇ δήμῳ χαίρειν τὴν μὲν ἐλευθερίαν καὶ αὐτονομίαν καὶ τὰ ἄλλα τὰ ὑπάρξαντα ὑμεῖν παρά τε τῆς συνκλήτου καὶ τῶν πρὸ ἐμοῦ αὐτοκρατόρων ἐβεβαίωσα πρόσθεν ἐντευχθεὶς δὲ διὰ πρεσβείας περὶ τῆς τοῦ σιδή- ρου χρήσεως καὶ τοῦ τέλους τῶν ἥλων καίπερ ἀνφισβητησίμου τοῦ πράγματος ὄντος διὰ τὸ μὴ νῦν πρῶτον τοὺς τελώνας ἐπικεχειρηκέναι παρʼ ὑμῶν ἐγλέγειν ὁμῶς εἰδὼς τὴν πόλιν τά τε ἄλλα τειμῆς οὖσαν ἀξίαν καὶ ἐξῃρημένην τοῦ τύπου τῆς ἐπαρχείας ἀπαλάσσω αὐτὴν τοῦ τελέσματος καὶ γέγραπφα Κλαυδίῳ Ἀγριππείνῳ τῷ ἐπιτρόπῳ μου παρανγεῖλαι τῷ μεμισθωμένῳ τὸ ἐν Ἀσίᾳ τέλος ἀπέχεσθαι τῆς ὑμετέρας πόλεως

Hadrian to Aphrodisias — the letter on the tax on nails — translation

Hadrian to Aphrodisias — the letter on the tax on nails — commentary

The letter opens with the emperor's full titulature — Hadrian as son of the deified Trajan and grandson of the deified Nerva, pontifex maximus, in his third year of the tribunician power. That last title dates the letter precisely to AD 119.

Then the address: ‘to the magistrates, the council and the people of the Aphrodisians’ — the standard form for an imperial letter to a Greek city, naming the three organs of the civic body. The letter belongs to the great dossier of imperial documents that Aphrodisias inscribed to keep the record of its standing with Rome — much of it gathered on the Archive Wall of the city's theatre.

Before he turns to the new matter, Hadrian recalls what he has already done. Aphrodisias was a free city — a civitas libera — and the emperor confirms that he has ‘earlier’ ratified its freedom and autonomy, and the other privileges the city held ‘from the Senate and the emperors before me’.

This is not a formality. Aphrodisias' free status had been granted in the triumviral age and ratified by a senatus consultum; the city guarded the whole paper-trail of that status and inscribed it. Hadrian's confirmation is the ground on which the favour that follows rests.

Here is the business of the letter. The Aphrodisians had sent an embassy to the emperor: the verb — ‘having been petitioned’ (ἐντευχθείς) — is the language of petition and response. The complaint was a tax: the tax-collectors were trying to levy a duty on the city's iron and on its nails.

Hadrian's answer is candid. He admits the legal point is ‘open to dispute’ — the collectors have a precedent. But he decides for the city anyway, on two grounds: its honoured standing, and the fact that it lies outside the formula provinciae, the province's tax-register. He releases Aphrodisias from the payment, and writes to his procurator, Claudius Agrippinus, to order the tax-contractor to leave the city alone.

Critical apparatus δημαρχικῆς ἐξουσίας τὸ γ´ — 'Holding the tribunician power for the third time' — Hadrian's third year of the tribunicia potestas, with the office of pontifex maximus, dates the letter to AD 119. Ἀφροδεισιέων ἄρχουσι βουλῇ δήμῳ χαίρειν — The address names the three organs of the city — magistrates, council and people — in the standard form of an imperial letter to a Greek city. The cutter's spelling Ἀφροδεισιέων (for Ἀφροδισιέων) is one of many itacistic forms kept verbatim. v. marks an uninscribed space. ἐντευχθεὶς δὲ διὰ πρεσβείας — 'Having been petitioned through an embassy' — the verb ἐντυγχάνειν is the technical language of petition. The city had sent envoys to carry its case to the emperor in person; the letter is the answer. τοῦ τέλους τῶν ἥλων — 'The tax on nails' — the duty the tax-collectors were trying to levy on Aphrodisian iron and ironware. Aphrodisias evidently had an iron and nail-trade worth taxing; the embassy was sent to stop the collectors. ἐξῃρημένη⟨ν⟩ τοῦ τύπου τῆς ἐπαρχείας — 'Set apart from the formula of the province' — Aphrodisias stood outside the τύπος (Latin formula) provinciae, the register of the province's communities and their tax obligations. That standing is Hadrian's ground for the exemption. The cutter omitted the final ν of ἐξῃρημένην, supplied by the editor. γέγραπφα Κλ(αυδίῳ) Ἀγριππείνῳ — 'I have written to Claudius Agrippinus' — Hadrian's procurator in Asia, to whom the emperor sends a separate letter to enforce the exemption. The cutter's γέγραπφα (for γέγραφα) keeps the vulgar spelling of the stone. τὸ ἐν Ἀσίᾳ τέλος ἀπέχεσθαι — The procurator is to instruct 'the man who holds the contract for the tax in Asia' — the tax-contractor — to keep away from Aphrodisias. The favour to the city is made effective by an order down the financial administration.

Editions and commentary J. Reynolds, Aphrodisias and Rome (London 1982), no. 15 (the edition followed here). Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum XXXII 1097. L'Année épigraphique 1984, 869. J. H. Oliver, Greek Constitutions of Early Roman Emperors from Inscriptions and Papyri (Philadelphia 1989), no. 69. F. Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World (London 1977), p. 429. L. Robert, in Bulletin de correspondance hellénique 107 (1983), 509–511; Bulletin épigraphique 1983, 376.