Leiden conventions rendered as EpiDoc: restorations as supplied(reason=lost), gaps as gap, abbreviations as expan(abbr+ex), omitted letters as supplied(reason=omitted), surplus as surplus, corrections as corr. Critical apparatus as listApp. The facing translation is div type=translation; the historical commentary is div type=commentary.
Copy of the letter of our Emperors An[toni]nus and Verus, the Augusti, to Coiiedius Maximus. We have read the petition of Iulianus the Zegrensian appended to your letter; and although Roman citizenship is not wont to be granted to tribesmen of that people except when called forth, by the highest deserts, to the imperial indulgence — nevertheless, since you affirm that he is among the foremost of his fellow-tribesmen and most loyal in ready obedience to our interests, and since we do not think that many families among the Zegrenses can make equal claim on the score of their services — although we should wish very many to be stirred, by the honour we confer on this house, to emulate Iulianus — we do not hesitate to give Roman citizenship, without prejudice to the law of the tribe, to Ziddina his wife as well, and likewise to his children Iulianus, Maximus, Maximinus and Diogenianus.
Copy of the letter of the Emperors Antoninus and Commodus, the Augusti, to Vallius Maximianus. We have read the petition of the chief of the Zegrensian people, and we have noted with what favour he is supported by the testimony of Epidius Quadratus, your predecessor. Accordingly, moved both by his testimony and by the man's own deserts and the precedents he cites, we have given Roman citizenship, without prejudice to the law of the tribe, to his wife and children, that it may be entered in our registers. Find out the age of each, and write to us.
Copied and verified from the register of those granted Roman citizenship by the Deified Augustus and Tiberius Caesar Augustus, and Gaius Caesar, and the Deified Claudius, and Nero, and Galba, and the Deified Augusti Vespasian and Titus and Caesar Domitian, and the Deified Augusti Nerva and Trajan the Parthian, and Trajan Hadrian, and Hadrian Antoninus Pius, and Verus Germanicus Medicus Parthicus Maximus, and the Emperor Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus Germanicus Sarmaticus, and the Emperor Caesar Lucius Aurelius Commodus Augustus Germanicus Sarmaticus — which register Asclepiodotus the freedman produced; that which is written below.
In the consulship of the Emperor Caesar Lucius Aurelius Commodus Augustus and Marcus Plautius Quintilius, on the day before the Nones of July, at Rome. Faggura, wife of Iulianus chief of the Zegrensian people, aged 22; Iuliana, aged 8; Maxima, aged 4; Iulianus, aged 3; Diogenianus, aged 2 — the children of the above-written Iulianus. At the request of Aurelius Iulianus, chief of the Zegrenses, made by petition, and with the support of Vallius Maximianus, given by letter, we have granted Roman citizenship to these persons, without prejudice to the law of the tribe, and without diminution of the tributes and revenues of the Roman people and the imperial treasury. Done on the same day, in the same place, in the consulship of the same men. Asclepiodotus, freedman: I have verified it.
They have signed: Marcus Gavius son of Marcus, of the Poblilian tribe, Squilla Gallicanus; Marcus Acilius son of Marcus, of the Galerian tribe, Glabrio; Titus Sextius son of Titus, of the Voturian tribe, Lateranus; Gaius Septimius son of Gaius, of the Quirina tribe, Severus; Publius Iulius son of Gaius, of the Sergian tribe, Scapula Tertullus; Titus Varius son of Titus, of the Claudian tribe, Clemens; Marcus Bassaeus son of Marcus, of the Stellatine tribe, Rufus; Publius Taruttienus son of Publius, of the Poblilian tribe, Paternus; Sextus [— — —]nis [— — —] (the line is damaged); Quintus Cervidius son of Quintus, of the Arnensis tribe, Scaevola; Quintus Larcius son of Quintus, of the Quirina tribe, Euripianus; Titus Flavius son of Titus, of the Palatine tribe, Piso.
The dossier opens with the first of its two imperial letters, headed Exemplum epistulae, ‘copy of the letter’. The emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus write to Coiiedius Maximus, the governor of the province, who had forwarded a petition from Iulianus, a chief of the Zegrenses — a Berber people of Mauretania Tingitana (Crawford, in Girard & Senn, Les lois des Romains, no. 16).
The letter is a small masterpiece of imperial chancery prose: a long, guarded sentence that concedes, qualifies, weighs the precedent, and only then grants. Roman citizenship, the emperors note, is not lightly given to tribesmen; but on the governor’s testimony to Iulianus’ loyalty they extend it to his wife Ziddina and his four children — and with the decisive clause saluo iure gentis, ‘without prejudice to the law of the tribe’: the new Romans keep their tribal status intact.
The second letter, a generation later, is from Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus to a later governor, Vallius Maximianus. Again a chief of the Zegrenses has petitioned; again the governor — and his predecessor Epidius Quadratus — vouches for him; again citizenship is granted to the man’s wife and children saluo iure gentis (Crawford, in Girard & Senn, no. 16).
What this letter adds is the bureaucratic sequel. The grant, the emperors say, is to be entered in commentarios nostros — into the imperial registers; and the governor is told to verify the children’s ages and report back. The order to register is what turns the rest of the bronze into a dossier: everything that follows is the execution of this one instruction.
The third document is the heading of an extract: Descriptum et recognitum, ‘copied and verified’, from the register (commentarius) of grants of Roman citizenship. Its single sentence is a roll-call of emperors, from the Deified Augustus to the reigning Commodus — every reign whose register of new citizens was still kept (Crawford, in Girard & Senn, no. 16).
This is the document’s most remarkable disclosure. It shows that the Roman state held a continuous central archive of individual citizenship grants, reign by reign, for nearly two centuries — and that an extract from it could be produced, certified, and published. The imperial freedman Asclepiodotus is named as the official who ‘produced’ the register; the words id quod infra scriptum est, ‘that which is written below’, point to the entry that follows.
Here is the register entry itself. It is dated with full bureaucratic exactness — by the consuls of AD 177, by the day (6 July), and by the place (Rome) — and then lists the beneficiaries by name and age: Faggura, wife of the chief Iulianus, aged 22, and four children aged between 2 and 8 (Crawford, in Girard & Senn, no. 16).
The operative sentence is a formula of the chancery: at the request (rogatu) of Iulianus by petition and with the support (suffragante) of the governor by letter, ‘we have granted Roman citizenship to these persons’ — saluo iure gentis, and sine diminutione tributorum et uectigalium, without loss of the taxes owed to Rome. The grant gives the franchise but keeps every obligation. The freedman Asclepiodotus closes the entry with one word, recognoui, ‘I have verified it’.
The bronze closes with twelve witnesses who ‘signed’ (signauerunt) — that is, sealed — the document. Each is given in the full Roman style: praenomen, filiation, voting-tribe, and cognomen (Crawford, in Girard & Senn, no. 16).
The list is not a set of provincial clerks but a roster of the empire’s highest men — the witnesses are members of the emperor’s council. Among them are M. Bassaeus Rufus, prefect of the praetorian guard, and Q. Cervidius Scaevola, the most eminent jurist of the age and a teacher of the young Septimius Severus. A grant of citizenship to a Berber family in Morocco was witnessed, and sealed, by the governing class of Rome itself.