The saltus Burunitanus petition — petition of the coloni and rescript of Commodus

The saltus Burunitanus petition — petition of the coloni and rescript of Commodus — edition

The first column tius os RM E t

The petition of the coloni intellegis praevaricationem quam non modo cum Allio Maximo adver sario nostro sed cum omnibus fere con ductoribus contra fas atque in perniciem rationum tuarum sine modo exercuit ut non solum cognoscere per tot retro annos instantibus ac suplicantibus vestramque divinam subscriptionem adlegantibus nobis supersederit ve rum etiam hoc eiusdem Alli Maximi conductoris artibus gratiosissimi ultimo indulserit ut missis militibus in eundem saltum Burunitanum ali os nostrum adprehendi et vexari ali os vinciri nonnullos cives etiam Ro manos virgis et fustibus effligi iusse rit scilicet eo solo merito nostro qu od euntes in tam gravi pro modulo me diocritatis nostrae tamque manifesta iniuria imploratum maiestatem tu am illicta epistula usi fuissemus cu ius nostrae inuriae evidentia Caesar inde profecto potest aestimari qu od quidem quem maiesta exsistimamus vel pro omnino cognos plane gratificati mum invenerit nostris quibu sbamus cogni beret inte praestare operas petita tot ei Quae res compulit nos miserrimos homi nes iam rursum divinae providentiae tuae suplicare et ideo rogamus sa cratissime Imperator subvenias ut kapite leg is Hadrianae quod supra scriptum est ademptum est ad emptum sit ius etiam procuratoribus nedum conductori adversus colonos am pliandi partes agrarias aut operarum prae bitionem iugorumve et ut se habent litterae proccuratorum quae sunt in tabulario tuo tractus Kar thaginiensis non amplius annuas quam binas aratorias binas satorias binas messo rias operas debeamus itque sine ulla contro versia sit utpote cum in aere incisum et ab omnibus omnino undique versum vicinis nostris perpetua in hodiernum forma praestitutum tum et proccuratorum litteris quas supra scripsimus ita confirmatum subvenias et cum homi nes rustici tenues manum nostrarum ope ris victum tolerantes conductori profusis largitionibus gratiosissimo impares aput proccuratores tuos simus quibus per vices successi onis per condicionem conductionis notus est miserearis ac sacro rescripto non ampli us praestare nos quam ex lege Hadriana et ex litteris proccuratorum tuorum debemus id est ter binas operas praecipere digneris ut bene ficio maiestatis tuae rustici tui vernulae et alumni saltum tuorum non ultra conduc toribus agrorum fiscalium inquietemur li

The rescript of Commodus Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Commodus An toninus Augustus Sarmaticus Germanicus maximus Lurio Lucullo et nomine a liorum procuratores contemplatione dis cipulinae et instituti mei ne plus quam ter binas operas curabunt ne quit per iniuriam contra perpe tuam formam a vobis exigatur et alia manu srcipsi recognovi

The procurators' letter exemplum epistulae procuratoris egregii viri Tussanius Aristo et Chrysanthus Andronico suo salutem secundum sacram subscriptionem domini nostri sanctissimi Imperatoris quam ad libellum suum datam Lurius Lucullus accepit et ali a manu optamus te feli cissimum bene viver e vale data pridie Idus Septembres Karthagine

The dedication feliciter consummata et dedicata Idibus Maiis Aureliano et Corne liano consulibus curam agente Caio Iulio Peloope Salaputi magistro

The saltus Burunitanus petition — petition of the coloni and rescript of Commodus — translation

The first column (ll. 1–5)

[The first column of the monument is lost; only the line-ends of five lines survive — …tius, …os, … — too little to yield connected sense. What stood here is unknown: perhaps the opening of the petition, or an earlier related document of the dossier.]

The petition of the coloni (ll. 6–38)

… [you understand] the collusion which he has carried on without measure — not only with Allius Maximus, our adversary, but with almost all the conductores — against right and to the ruin of your revenues: so that, through so many years past, while we pressed and entreated and produced your own divine subscription, he not only refused to hear our case, but even, by the arts of this same Allius Maximus the conductor, a man of the highest favour, indulged him at the last so far as this — that, soldiers having been sent into the same saltus Burunitanus, he ordered some of us to be seized and harassed, others to be put in chains, and some, even Roman citizens, to be beaten with rods and cudgels; and this for our sole desert — that, against an injury so grave and so manifest, in proportion to the smallness of our means, we had made use of a letter to implore your majesty. The plain proof of this wrong of ours, Caesar, may be judged from … [here the column breaks into fragments].

The petition of the coloni (ll. 39–69)

[This is what] has compelled us, most wretched men, to supplicate once more your divine providence; and therefore we beg you, most sacred Emperor, to come to our aid — that by the chapter of the lex Hadriana written above, the right be taken away, even from the procurators, far more from the conductor, of enlarging against the coloni the agrarian shares, or the rendering of labour-services and of yoke-teams; and that, as the letters of the procurators which are in the record-office of your Carthaginian district provide, we should owe no more each year than two days' ploughing, two for sowing, two for harvesting; and that this stand beyond all dispute, inasmuch as it has been fixed in perpetuity — cut in bronze, and upheld by all our neighbours on every side down to the present day — and confirmed too by the procurators' letters we have cited above. Come to our aid; and since we are poor country folk, earning our livelihood by the labour of our hands, and no match before your procurators for the conductor — who, through his lavish bounties, stands highest in favour, and is well known to them, through the successive turns of office, by the terms of his lease — take pity on us, and deign to ordain by a sacred rescript that we render no more than we owe by the lex Hadriana and by the letters of your procurators — that is, three pairs of days' work — so that by the bounty of your majesty we, your country folk, home-born and the nurslings of your estates, may be troubled no further by the conductores of the fiscal lands. …

The rescript of Commodus (ll. 70–78)

The Emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus, Sarmaticus, Germanicus Maximus, to Lurius Lucullus and, in the name of the rest: the procurators, in regard for established discipline and for my own ordinance, will see to it that not more than three pairs of days' work be required, and that nothing be exacted from you by wrong, contrary to the standing rule. And in another hand: I have written. I have read it through.

The procurators' letter (ll. 79–90)

A copy of the letter of the procurator, the distinguished gentleman. — Tussanius Aristo and Chrysanthus, to their Andronicus, greeting. In accordance with the sacred subscription of our lord the most holy Emperor — which, given upon his petition, Lurius Lucullus received … — And in another hand: we wish you the happiest of lives and good health. Farewell. Given on the day before the Ides of September, at Carthage.

The dedication (ll. 91–95)

With good fortune. Completed and dedicated on the Ides of May, in the consulship of Aurelianus and Cornelianus, under the care of Gaius Iulius Peloops Salaputis, magister.

The saltus Burunitanus petition — petition of the coloni and rescript of Commodus — commentary

The monument carried its dossier in four columns. The first is all but lost — only the ends of five lines survive, a handful of letters that yield no connected sense. What stood here cannot be recovered: perhaps the opening of the petition itself, perhaps an earlier document of the same affair.

The edition keeps the column in its place, and numbers its lines, so that the surviving text is read in the order the stone presents it.

The petition proper opens, mid-sentence, with the collusion at the heart of the case. The conductor — the lessee who farmed the imperial estate's rents — named here as Allius Maximus, has conspired ‘not only… but with almost all the conductores’, and, the petition insists, against the emperor's own interest: ‘to the ruin of your revenues’.

Then the grievance turns physical. When the coloni appealed — producing the emperor's divine subscription — the answer was soldiers, sent into the saltus Burunitanus to seize, chain and beat them: ‘some, even Roman citizens, beaten with rods and cudgels’. To flog a Roman citizen was itself a grave illegality, and the petition names it deliberately. The column then breaks into fragments.

The petition's second column is its legal heart. The coloni ask the emperor to enforce the lex Hadriana — the estate-law ‘written above’ — so that no one, ‘not even the procurators, far less the conductor’, may enlarge the labour-services owed. The figure they want fixed is precise: two days' ploughing, two for sowing, two for harvesting — the ter binae operae, six days a year and no more.

Their proof is documentary and material: the rule stands ‘cut in bronze’, in the procurators' own letters kept in the record-office of the Carthaginian district, upheld by every neighbouring community. And the plea closes on the petition's sharpest theme — that they are the emperor's own: ‘your country folk, home-born and the nurslings of your estates’, ruined by the very lessees who farm his land.

The emperor's answer — the subscriptio — is brief and decisive. Commodus addresses it to the procurator Lurius Lucullus and his colleagues, and gives the coloni what they asked: the procurators are to see that no more than the ter binae operae is required, and that nothing be exacted ‘by wrong, contrary to the standing rule’.

The closing words — et alia manu: scripsi…, ‘and in another hand: I have written’ — mark the emperor's own autograph beneath the chancery's draft. The reply is an order to his officials: not the petitioners but the procurators are told what they may and may not do.

The dossier shows the rescript travelling down the administration. The two procurators of the province, Tussanius Aristo and Chrysanthus, copy the emperor's subscription into a letter to their subordinate Andronicus — the official on the spot — so that it may be applied on the estate itself.

It is a small but telling document: the same procurators whose office the coloni had accused of colluding with the conductor are now the channel by which the emperor's ruling against that collusion is carried out. The letter ends with the writers' own autograph greeting and a date — the day before the Ides of September, at Carthage.

The last lines are not part of the dossier but the record of the stone itself. The whole file — petition, rescript, covering letter — was ‘completed and dedicated’ on the Ides of May, under the care of a magister, Gaius Iulius Peloops Salaputis, an officer of the coloni's own community.

The coloni had asked Commodus, in the petition, that his answer be made public and permanent. This closing note is the proof that they did it: they cut the entire correspondence into stone and set it up on the estate — which is why the document survives to be read.

Critical apparatus [intellegis praevaricationem] — The petition opens mid-sentence: the top of the second column is lost, and the first surviving words stand within an editorial restoration. The supplement follows the standard editions; the sense begins clearly only at ‘quam non modo’. se‹d› — The cutter engraved SET for sed; the editor corrects it. The Latin of the whole inscription is markedly vulgar — kapite for capite, suplicare for supplicare, discipulina for disciplina, srcipsi for scripsi — the speech of the African countryside, kept verbatim here. saltum Burunitanum — The saltus Burunitanus — the imperial estate that gives the document its name. It lay in the Bagradas (Medjerda) valley of Africa Proconsularis, in the Carthaginian district; the stone was found in its territory at Souk el-Khmis. non⟨n⟩ullos cives etiam Romanos — ‘Some, even Roman citizens’ — beaten, the next line says, ‘with rods and cudgels’. To flog a Roman citizen was a serious illegality, and the petition names it pointedly. The cutter wrote a single n in nonnullos; the editor supplies the second. [am illicta] epistula — The restoration completes tu[am] from the previous line; the following word, given by the standard editions as illicta, is a conjectural reading and the sense of the phrase is not secure. The bracket marks the whole span as editorial. petita tot ei[---] — The second column breaks off here into fragments (lines 29–38): only scattered words survive, and no connected translation is possible. The petition resumes, on the next column, at line 39. Hadrian⟨a⟩e … ademptum est ademptum — The lex Hadrianae (for Hadrianae, the cutter omitting one a). In the same line the cutter has engraved ‘ademptum est’ twice over — a dittography; the standard text reads ‘quod supra scriptum est, ademptum sit ius’. The reading text keeps the stone's repetition verbatim. t[ab]u‹l›ario tuo tractus Karthaginiensis — The record-office (tabularium) of the Carthaginian district (tractus Karthaginiensis), where the procurators' letters fixing the labour-services were kept on file. The cutter engraved an I for the l of tabulario; the editor corrects it. in aere incisum — ‘Cut in bronze’ — the rule the coloni invoke was published on a bronze tablet, the perpetua forma. The lex Hadriana and the related estate-laws of Roman Africa are known from just such inscribed publications. id est ter binas operas — The precise figure the petition fights for: ter binae operae — three ‘pairs’ of days' work, six days a year, two for ploughing, two for sowing, two for harvesting (lines 49–51). It is exactly this figure that Commodus's rescript will confirm (line 75). [Imp(erator) Ca]es(ar) M(arcus) Aurelius Commodus — Commodus's rescript opens with his full titulature: Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus, Sarmaticus, Germanicus Maximus. The victory-titles fix the document to AD 182. et alia manu srcipsi recognovi — ‘And in another hand: I have written; I have read it through.’ The formula marks the emperor's own autograph beneath the chancery's draft of the rescript. The cutter's srcipsi (for scripsi) is one more vulgar spelling kept verbatim. Lurius Lucullus accepit — From here to line 87 several words of the closing subscription — accepit, an erased line, et ali[a], and opta[mus] — stand in rasura: they were erased on the stone in antiquity but remain legible, and are printed here in their place. Line 85 is an erased line of which no letters are recovered. C(aio) Iulio [Pelo]ope Salaputi mag(istro) — The monument was set up ‘under the care of’ Gaius Iulius Peloops, with the agnomen Salaputis, the magister — the elected officer of the coloni's own community.

Editions and commentary Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum VIII 10570, re-edited VIII 14464. H. Dessau, Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae 6870. S. Riccobono, Fontes Iuris Romani Antejustiniani I, no. 103. Inscriptions latines de la Tunisie (ILTun) 1237. T. Hauken, Petition and Response: An Epigraphic Study of Petitions to Roman Emperors 181–249 (Bergen 1998), p. 7 (the saltus Burunitanus petition discussed as a forerunner of the third-century corpus). Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss–Slaby, EDCS-61300095 (the machine-readable text followed here). The stone is conserved in the Musée du Louvre, Paris.