Fülöp Gyula (szerk.): Festschrift für Jenő Fitz - Szent István Király Múzeum közleményei. B. sorozat 47. (Székesfehérvár, 1996)

H. Devijver: The Monument of an Equestrian Officer(?) from Poetovio, Pannonia Superior

the parazonium (parade sword) provided the iconography and the symbolism to indicate equestrian officers.“9’

The iconography of block 1 therefore points manifestly to an equestrian officer who held a militia or militiae equestres. For that matter, all the scholars who have studied the relief of block 1 agree that the symbolism is of a military nature.*19 20 21 22 23 24’

Th. Schäfer believes that the deceased’s municipal career could have been preceded by equestrian military posts.1211 But. there are two fundamental objections to this view. To begin with, it is unlikely that the equestrian militiae would be omitted from the inscriptions as they ranked higher than a municipal career; secondly, it is apparent from many studies that the municipal elite of decuriones and bouleutai only came to the militiae equestres around the age of 35-45, i.e. after having held municipal office.122’

Can the inscriptions of block 2, which may have belonged to the same monument as block 1, decide this matter? The career of C. Valerius Tettius Fuscus would seem to be purely municipal : decurio, quaestor, aedilis, praefectus fabrum, Ilvir iure dicundo, augur. This is a municipal career that looks wholly normal for Poetovio.*231

Th. Schäfer suggests a second possible link between the weapons-relief and Fuscus’ career, viz. the praefectura fabrumf2^ This office had a twofold meaning under the Empire.*25 26’ After the reforms of the emperor Claudius the praefectura fabrum was not part of the militiae equestres as such,*261 but a kind of preliminary stage. The praefectus fabrum was now a kind of orderly, a liaison officer - sometimes charged with juridical problems - attached to an emperor, a consul, a governor. Such a praefectus fabrum, then, was always in the service of influential people who were in a position to provide him with a post in the militiae equestres. If Tettius Fuscus held this type of prafectura fabrum, the weapons-relief could be an allusion thereto, a usurpation, as it were, of the symbolism*27 *’ of the militiae equesttes to indicate the preliminary phase. This solution seems rather

(19) Together with my colleague F. Van Wonterghem (Leuven) 1 have started up a new project, namely the systematic study of the «monuments of equestrian officers». A number of studies on this topic have already seen the light: H. Devuver (see note 16), p. 390—395, p. 412—415, p. 416-449; H. Devuver, Un des monuments romains les plus connus de France (CIL XII3175 + 3368), AncSoc 20 (1989), p. 221-238. At the moment a first systematic examination is in the press : H. Devuver-F. Van Wonterghem, The Funerary Monuments of Equestrian Officers of the Late Republic and Early Empire in Italy (50 B.C.-I00 A.D.), AncSoc 21 (1990) p. 59-98, Fig. 37 : the symbols and the iconography of the militiae equestres are discussed in detail in this paper: lorica (pleryges, gorgone ion, cinctorium), parma equestris (over two crossed hastae), ocreae, parazonium.

(20) Th. Schäfer (see note 8), p. 359 note 819.

(21) Th. Schäfer (see note 8), p. 359.

(22) H. Devuver (see note 16), p. 470 s.v. «militiae equestres: social origin».

(23) G. Alföldy, Die 'Valerii' (see note 10), p. 138-140.

(24) Th. Schäfer (see note 8), p. 360 note 828.

(25) For the meaning of the praefectura fabrum see B. Dobson, The 'praefectus fabrum' in the Early Principate, in Britain and Rome, Kendal, 1966, p. 61-84; D.B. Saddington, Praefecti fabrum of the Julio-Claudian Period, in Festschrift A. Betz, Wien, 1985, p. 529-546; R. Sabla yrolles, Les ‘praefecti fabrum’ de Narbonnaise, Revue Archéologique de Narbonnaise 77 (1984), p. 239-247.

(26) H. Devuver, Suétone, Claude, 25, et les milices équestres, AncSoc 1 ( 1970), p. 69-81 = Mavors VI (see note 16), p. 16-28 ; S. Demougin, L’ordre équestre sous les Julio-Claudiens (Collection de l'École Française de Rome, 108), Roma, 1988, p. 293-298.

(27) F. Kolb, Zur Statussymbolik im antiken Rom, Chiron 7 (1977),

p. 239-259, p. 257-258.

unlikely as the prafectura fabrum is mentioned amid the municipal offices; the post here seems to belong to the second category of praefecturae fabrum, i.e. an appointment in the municipal cursus honorum.i2S)

A second hypothesis to relate blocks 1 and 2 to one another is that Tettius Fuscus held the military tribunate in a legion. Let us briefly explain this general consideration and then see if it applies to this concrete case.

Many members of the municipal elite, after a well-filled political career in their home town, held just a single militia, extra ordinem so to speak, namely the rather administrative tribunate in a legion.*29’ They were quite content with this post, regarding it as the culmination of their career and as the confirmation of their membership in the ordo equester.*30’ In the cursus honorum proper of Tettius Fuscus in the inscriptions no such tribunate is mentioned, nor is it explicitly stated that he belonged to the or do equester. Yet he was surely a likely candidate for that order, which was recruited almost exclusively among the municipal elite.*31’ The inscription does mention a tribunatus further on; loca collegio magno Larum et imaginum domini n(ostri) Caesaris ob honorem tribunatus pec(unia) sua fecit. The question is whether this tribunate was one of the militiae equestres or a function - the chairmanship - in the collegium magnum Larum et imaginum domini nostri Caesaris.

If the legionary tribunate is indeed meant in the inscriptions of block 2, then the iconography of block 1 is a synthesis of C. Valerius Tettius Fuscus’ cursus honorum: the sella curulis itself is the symbol of his important municipal career, the weapons-relief in the central portion of the sella symbolizes his military tribunate.'32’ Yet this interpretation, viz. that the tribunatus mentioned was a military post, is far from certain. First of all, the cursus honorum as given in the inscriptions makes no mention of a tribunate in a legion ; secondly, most scholars relate the tribunatus cited to the collegium magnum Larum et imaginum domini nostri Caesaris,(33) Fuscus presumably became honorary

(28) For other examples of municipal praefecti fabrum from Poetovio, see G. Alföldy (see note 10).

(29) H. Devuver, Mavors VI (see note 16), p. 472 s.v. «tribunus angusticlavius legionis»; S. Demougin (see note 26), p. 295-296.

(30) H. Devuver (see note 29).

(31) Els Ijsewun, Gli «ordines decurionum» come base di recluiamento déllé «militiae equestres» sotto il Principato, Bulletin de l'Institut Historique Belge de Rome 53-55 (1983-84), p. 41-63; H. Devuver, Mavors VI (see note 16), p. 470-471 s.v. «militiae equestres: social origin».

(32) See note 19.

(33) For the collegium magnum Larum et imaginum domini nostri Caesaris see also CIL XIV 2045 = ILS 1534 (P. Aelius Aug(usti). lib(ertus), tribunicius collegi magni); CIL VI 671 cf. 30808 = ILS 3543; CIL VI 4305 = ILS 1732 (collegio magno tribfunorum) divae Augustae) and, CIL VI 4012 (trib(unus) Aug(ustae)); CIL III 6077 = ILS 1505 = Inschr. Ephesos VI (1980), p. 90-91 n. 2200A; V. Hoffiller-B. Saria, AIJ 387 = CIL III4059 (trib(unus), sc. collegii Larum et...); C. Letta, Le imagines Caesarum di un praefectus castrorum Aegypti e TXI coorte pretoria, Athenaeum 56 (1978), p. 3-19, see esp. p. 18-19 (references to other sources and bibliography). On the tribunatus of C. Valerius Tettius Fuscus see H. Devuver, PME II p. 832-833; A. and J. 5a5el, Inscriptiones Latinae quae in Jugoslavia inter annos MCMXL et MCMLX repertae et editae sunt. Ljubljana, 1963, p. 9-52: «Indices ad V. Hoffiller et B. Saria, Antike Inschriften aus Jugoslavien, I, Zagreb, 1938, p. 33 n. 11 Res municipalis»; V. Hoffiller-B. Saru, o.c., p. 174-175 n. 387 : «.Tribunus hier nicht als militärische Charge aufzufassen, wie im Index zu CIL III p. 25707, sondern als ziviler Amt, etwa wie bei Skrabar im Larenverein von Poetovio (vgl. CIL VI 4305 oder XIV 2045)».

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