IRCyr   Inscriptions of Roman Cyrenaica

C.183. Honours for the procurator C. Pomponius Cordius

Description: Limestone base with a simple moulding above (w: 0.52 x h: 1.47 x d: 0.40).
Text: Inscribed on one face, below the moulding.
Letters: Second-third century 0.04 - 0.05

Date: CE 209-211

Findspot: Cyrene: Valley Street, re-used in the foundation of a late wall adjoining Temple G; found in 1958.
Original location: Unknown.
Last recorded location: Cyrene Museum.

Interpretive

C(aio) Pomponio
Coṛdio proc(uratori)
Aug(ustorum trium) n(ostrorum trium)
Valerius ( vac. 1)
5 Valens prạ[e]f(ectus)
coh(ortis) [I ] [M]aced(onicae)
praesidi opt[i-]
mo ẹṭ beni-
( vac. 1)gnissimo ( vac. 1)

Diplomatic

CPOMPONIO
CO.DIOPROC
AUGG⟦G⟧NN⟦N⟧
VALERIUS  
5VALENSPR.[.]F
COH[..]ACED
PRAESIDIOPT[.-]
MO..BENI
  GNISSIMO  

Apparatus

3: Previous publications failed to indicate that the final G and N were deleted, not simply lost

English translation

Translation by: Charlotte Roueché

For Caius Pomponius Cordius, procurator of our three Augusti (Severus, Caracalla and Geta); Valerius Valens, prefect of the [First Macedonian] cohort, for (his) best and most benign commander.

Commentary

Line 2: C. Pomponius Cordius: PIR2 P 0709, is not otherwise known. He is the earliest procurator so far recorded in Cyrenaica, and his post may be a new creation of Severus, for whose policy of expanding the equestrian civil service see H.G. Pflaum, Les procurateurs équestres sous le haut empire romain (Paris, 1950) 82f. he was perhaps concerned with the administration of the ager publicus formerly handled by publicani. The title praeses applied to him in line 7 may indicate that he had the authority of a governor (either because the series of proconsuls was temporarily interrupted or conceivably, during the absence of the contemporary proconsul in Crete), but in view of its application in c. 160 CE to T. Valerius Clemens proc. provinc. Belg. et utriusque Germ. (e.g. ILS 1362b, EDH 024769) may be simply honorific, cf. Pflaum, loc. cit. p. 116.

Line 3: AVGG[[G]] NN[[N]] i.e Septimius Severus, Caracalla and Geta; strictly between 209, when Geta received the title Augustus, and the death of Severus in 211, but Geta is not infrequently given the title Augustus at an earlier date: cf. IRT 913, 914, 915, 916.

Line 5: Valerius Valens: Just possibly to be identified with PIR1, V 0147, prefect of the fleet at Misenum and Prefect of the Vigiles under Gordian; but the name is a comparatively common one.

Line 6: Cohors I Macedonica: also in C.75. The number of the cohort is lost in both cases, but here the space available leaves no room for doubt that if there was a figure it was I.

Bibliography: Goodchild-Reynolds, 1962, 1.a, pp. 37-38, with illustration, pl. XXIIIa; whence AE 1969/70.636, whence EDH 012424; see also Reynolds, 1965a, 1. Discussed Struffolino, 2014, 352-353
Text constituted from: Transcription (Reynolds).

Images

   Fig. 1. Front view (9162, J.B. Ward Perkins, 23635; British School at Rome, 68695)

   Fig. 2. Text from right