Les élites de la colonie et de l’Empire à Arles, au début du Principat: nouveaux témoignages épigraphiques

Abstract

This article provides a detailled analysis of fragmentary inscriptions found as spolia in Arles. Most of them were found during the excavation of the cryptoporticos of the forum and had only been briefly announced so far. The first group sheds light on the military functions exercised by the equestrians of Arles at the beginning of the imperial period. After a discussion of three previously known documents, two texts are examined that mention hitherto unknown military posts: that of a tribunus speculatorum and of a praefectus equitum et peditum, presumably fulfilled between the beginning of the principate and the reign of Claudius. A second group consists of six texts which must have belonged to monuments that stood on the forum of the colony. These include two inscriptions in the honour of local notables, an homage to a new proconsul of Gallia Narbonensis named Crassus, presumably an extract from an honorary decree, an inscription that records the erection of two statues, and a text that mentions a decree of the decurions. The analysis makes it possible to establish with certainty that the senator M. Pompeius Silvanus Staberius Flavenus came from Arles and was in fact named Flavenus and not Flavinus. The last group presented is somewhat different and consists of two fragments of epitaphs and seven other, small fragments. The corpus attests to the vitality of civic life in Arles and the early
existence of a capable and loyal elite that was able to claim positions in the higher ranks of Roman society already in the first decades of the colony’s history.