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.
In the consulship of the Emperor Otho Caesar Augustus, on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of April: copied and checked against the bound codex of Lucius Helvius Agrippa, proconsul, which Gnaeus Egnatius Fuscus, clerk of the quaestor, produced, in which was written that which is written below — on tablet five, chapters eight, nine and ten. On the third day before the Ides of March, Lucius Helvius Agrippa, proconsul, having heard the case, pronounced:
Since it is fitting, for the public good, that matters once judged should stand; and since, in the case of the Patulcenses, Marcus Iuventius Rixa — a most distinguished man, procurator of Augustus — has repeatedly pronounced that the boundaries of the Patulcenses are to be kept as they were laid down on the bronze tablet by Marcus Metellus;
and since he finally pronounced that the Galillenses, repeatedly reopening the dispute and not obeying his decree, he had wished to chastise — but, out of regard for the clemency of the best and greatest princeps, was content to admonish them by edict, that they should keep quiet and stand by what had been judged, and should withdraw from the estates of the Patulcenses before the next Kalends of October, and hand over possession of them empty; and that, if they persisted in their obstinacy, he would proceed severely against the authors of sedition;
and since afterwards Caecilius Simplex, a most distinguished man, approached on the same case by the Galillenses — who said that they would bring a tablet bearing on the matter from the emperor's record-office — pronounced that it was humane to grant a postponement for the proof, and granted a space of three months until the Kalends of December, within which day, unless the document were produced, he would follow that survey-map which was in the province:
I too, approached by the Galillenses pleading that the document had not yet been produced, granted a space until the Kalends of February last past; and, since I perceive that the delay is agreeable to those occupiers — let the Galillenses withdraw, before the next Kalends of April, from the lands of the Patulcenses Campani which they had seized by force. And if they do not comply with this pronouncement, let them know that they will be liable to the punishment, so often threatened, for their long obstinacy.
In the council were: Marcus Iulius Romulus, legate with propraetorian power; Titus Atilius Sabinus, quaestor with propraetorian power; Marcus Stertinius Rufus the son; Sextus Aelius Modestus; Publius Lucretius Clemens; Marcus Domitius Vitalis; Marcus Lusius Fidus; Marcus Stertinius Rufus. Witnesses to the sealing: Gnaeus Pompeius Ferox, Aurelius Gallus, Marcus Blossius Nepos, Gaius Cordius Felix, Lucius Vigellius Crispinus, Gaius Valerius Faustus, Marcus Lutatius Sabinus, Lucius Cocceius Genialis, Lucius Plotius Verus, Decimus Veturius Felix, Lucius Valerius Peplus.
The document opens not with the decree but with its authentication. It is dated by the consulship of Otho — one of the four emperors of AD 69 — and certified as ‘copied and checked’ (descriptum et recognitum) against the proconsul’s own bound register, the codex ansatus, produced in evidence by a quaestor’s clerk. The inscribed bronze is thus, by its own statement, a certified copy of an entry ‘on tablet five, chapters eight, nine and ten’ of an archive.
Only then comes the act itself: on 13 March AD 69 the proconsul L. Helvius Agrippa, ‘having heard the case’ (caus(s)a cognita), pronounced — the formal verb of a governor’s judicial ruling.
Agrippa’s ruling is built almost entirely out of earlier rulings. Its first pillar is the principle that ‘matters once judged should stand’ (rebus iudicatis stare) — and its first cited authority is M. Iuventius Rixa, an imperial procurator, who had ‘repeatedly pronounced’ that the boundaries of the Patulcenses stood as fixed long before on a bronze tablet by one M. Metellus.
The dispute is therefore old: a boundary set by a Republican magistrate, re-affirmed by a procurator, now invoked again. The case is a study in how a Roman ruling was meant to be transmitted — carried forward, document by document, until it could be enforced.
Rixa’s last pronouncement is quoted as the model the proconsul follows. The Galillenses — for ‘repeatedly reopening the dispute’ and disobeying — deserved punishment; but Rixa, ‘out of regard for the clemency of the best and greatest princeps’, chose instead to admonish them by edict: withdraw from the Patulcenses’ estates by 1 October, hand over empty possession, or face severe measures against the ‘authors of sedition’.
The clemency is formulaic, but it is also a real instrument of government: the procurator scales his response, edict before force, and frames even his patience as the emperor’s.
The chain lengthens. Caecilius Simplex — a senatorial governor, Agrippa’s predecessor — was approached by the Galillenses, who promised to produce a decisive tablet ‘from the emperor’s record-office’ (ex tabulario principis). Simplex judged it ‘humane’ to allow time, and set a three-month deadline: produce the document, or the existing provincial survey-map would govern.
The case now has four layers of ruling — Metellus, Rixa, Simplex, and Agrippa to come — each citing the last. The Galillenses’ tactic is equally visible: not to win, but to delay.
Now the proconsul speaks in the first person — ego quoque, ‘I too’. He had granted one further extension; the document never came; and he states plainly that ‘the delays are agreeable to those occupiers’. The patience is exhausted. He pronounces: the Galillenses must quit the lands of the Patulcenses Campani — lands they had seized per vim, by force — by 1 April; non-compliance means the long-threatened punishment.
The ruling is the end of a process measured in generations: a Republican boundary, an imperial procurator’s confirmations, two proconsuls’ deadlines, and at last a date with a sanction behind it.
A Roman governor did not judge alone. The decree closes with the consilium — the advisory council ‘in attendance’ when Agrippa ruled: his legate and quaestor, both holding propraetorian rank, and six further men. Their names authenticate the act.
Then the signatores — the eleven witnesses whose seals closed the certified copy. Their names, in the genitive, are the Roman equivalent of a notarised signature: the bronze is not just a record of the ruling but a legally sealed instrument.