Boundary between Aquileia and Emona reconsidered PDF

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LXXVIII 2016 FRATELLI LEGA EDITORI FAENZA MARJETA ŠAŠEL KOS * BOUNDARY BETWEEN AQUILEIA AND EMONA RECONSIDERED Abstract This short essay is the reply to the article of Carolina Cortés Bárcena (Epigraphica, 77, 2015, pp. 117-132) about the boundary stone between the territories of Aquileia and Emona,...

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LXXVIII

2016

FRATELLI LEGA EDITORI FAENZA

MARJETA ŠAŠEL KOS *

BOUNDARY BETWEEN AQUILEIA AND EMONA RECONSIDERED

 Abstract This short essay is the reply to the article of Carolina Cortés Bárcena (Epigraphica, 77, 2015, pp. 117-132) about the boundary stone between the territories of Aquileia and Emona, discovered in the Ljubljanica River below the village of Bevke (near Ljubljana, Slovenia). She examined the termini delimiting territories that had belonged to different administrative units, claiming that such could also be the case of the boundary stone from Bevke. Counter-argument are discussed here, as well as additional arguments in favour of the thesis that Emona had been founded (earlier) under Augustus as a colony in Italy. The discussion had to be re-opened also in the light of the recent scholarship on Pannonia, in which Emona is regarded as a colony founded by Tiberius in Pannonia. Keywords: Italy (Regio X), Pannonia, epigraphy, boundary stone, Aquileia, Emona.

Problematic explanation of the Bevke boundary stone In the most recent volume of the journal, Carolina Cortés Bárcena published an interesting and important article about the boundary stone discovered in the Ljubljanica River below the village of Bevke (Slovenia; Fig. 1), delimiting the territory between the communities of Aquileia and Emona (modern Ljubljana)  (1). The monument is dated to the reign of Augustus, which is confirmed both by the provenance of stone (limestone of Aurisina) and by palaeography (Fig. 2)  (2). The revision of all inscribed stone monuments from Emona and its administrative territory *  Ljubljana, Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts (ZRC, SAZU).   (1)  Cortés Bárcena 2015.   (2)  Šašel Kos 2002a and b; ead. 2014.

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Fig. 1. Map of the triple border between Italy, Noricum, and Pannonia, including the site of discovery of the boundary stone (computer graphics: Mateja Belak).

has shown that Aurisina limestone was only used for the earliest monuments found in this region, those from the late Republican and Augustan periods. The inscription on the boundary stone is short but distributed on three panels; on the upper panel, as well as on the front and back sides. This is exceptional, since it is more common that boundary stones are inscribed on two sides. The text reads: Finis // Aquileien/sium // Emonen/sium  (3). It is always worthwhile to discuss exceptional and significant epigraphic finds from different points of view, and such is undoubtedly the case with the boundary stone under discussion. Additional evidence can shed more light on its correct assessment, and it is important to distinguish between a fact and a hypothesis. Aquileienses, the inhabitants of Aquileia, and Emonenses are mentioned in the inscription, rather than towns themselves. Clearly both towns must have had the same status, i.e. that of an autonomous Roman town, which in the case of Aquileia and Emona was that of a colonia. This was my first of the «two certain starting points», and this statement has not been challenged by the author. She has, however, disagreed with the thesis that the monument offered an undisputable proof of Emona having be  (3)  Šašel Kos 2002a = AE 2002, 532 a-c.



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Fig. 2. Boundary stone from Bevke (AEp 2002, 532 a-c).

longed to the same administrative unit as Aquileia  (4). This would mean that Emona belonged, as much as Aquileia, to Italy, and more precisely to Regio X. I argued that the contrary case, i.e. if Emona had belonged to Illyricum, would have been mentioned in the inscription, in one way or another. She is right in-so-far as I should indeed reconsider my statement about the boundary stone being the proof of Emona belonging to Italy in the Augustan period. Admittedly, it would be more prudent to say that it is an additional argument in favour of Emona having been founded as a Roman colony in Italy. Two boundary inscriptions, which I cited, seem to confirm the thesis that different administrative units are noted as such in   (4)  Also doubted by Sisani 2015 (forthcoming), 105 n. 2.

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the texts. The first is a boundary stone discovered in the ruins of Marcianopolis (modern Devnya), and it is inscribed on two sides. The inscription on one side reads: F(ines) terr(itorii) Thrac(um), and on the other: F(ines) terr(itorii) Odess(itanorum)  (5). Four more were found bearing the same inscription; they have been discussed by Carolina Cortés Bárcena, who concluded that their interpretation remains open to discussion  (6). However, in any case, they could not be regarded as an adequate comparison, since even if the province of Thrace had been mentioned in the inscription and not the Thracians, the inscription would not have referred to two towns but to a town and a province. The second inscription that I cited in favour of my thesis is a boundary inscription between the Thracians and the city of Thasos from Neapolis (modern Petropigi near Kavalla)  (7). However, in the opinion of the author  (8), this is also not a particularly valid argument in support of my assumption, since Thassos, although a civitas libera, seems to have been dependent on the province of Thrace. In contrast, she cited a number of inscriptions mentioning towns in different provinces and their dispute about boundaries, which indeed is very instructive and useful, but mainly they are not boundary cippi of the type of the Bevke boundary stone, in which the territory of the two towns had not been disputed but merely delimited. The examples cited by the author are mainly inscriptions noting imperial decisions erected due to various boundary disputes, in which provincial or military legates, referring to the ruling emperor, often intervened. Such boundary inscriptions are well known also in Dalmatia  (9). These examples cannot be taken to disprove my thesis because they are not relevant, and, moreover, they are not a valid argument because they concern towns in provinces, while not a single one is a boundary stone between a town in Italy and a town in a province. This does make a great difference, and until such a boundary stone comes to light, my hypothesis can be regarded   (5)  AEp 1928, 152 = HD023791 = lupa 20010; the reading in the Epigraphic Database Heidelberg: F(ines) terr(ae) / Thrac(um) // F(ines) terr(ae) / Odess(itanorum).   (6)  Cortés Bárcena 2015, pp. 119-122.   (7)  ILGR 212 = AEp 1992, 1533 = HD014711: Imp(eratore) Ca[e]sare / Nerva [T]raia­no / Aug(usto) Germ[a]nico / [I]III Articuleio Pae/[to] co(n)s(ulibus) ex / [a]uctori/[tate Cae]saris / Nervae Tra[ia]ni Aug(usti) / Germanic[i] / fines / inter Thra[c]as et Tha[s]ios termi[n]us secun/[d]us infra [---.   (8)  Cortés Bárcena 2015, pp. 122-123.   (9)  Wilkes 1974; on various kinds of boundary cippi see also Donati 2010.



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as valid. In legal terms, particularly concerning taxes and various privileges, differences between Italy and provincial territories were crucial. It does make a difference if disputes or boundaries are epigraphically documented between towns in different provinces or between a town in Italy and another one in a province. A town along a border could probably not be as easily transferred from a province to Italy or vice versa, as it could be moved from one province to another. Such was, for example, the case of Poetovio (present-day Ptuj), which had originally been in Noricum  (10), but after the presumably peaceful annexation of the kingdom around 15 BC and the conquest of Illyricum following the Pannonian War (12-8 BC) and the great Pannonian-Dalmatian Rebellion (AD 6-9) the town was administratively transferred to Lower Illyricum (later Pannonia). The measure was carried out for geopolitical and strategic reasons. However, in the late Roman period (undoubtedly for the same reasons) Poetovio was again attached to Noricum  (11). Changing province was not the same legal transaction as a transfer from a province to Italy or from Italy to a province. Emona in Italy - reconsideration of evidence As has already been argued  (12), there are so many indications supporting the thesis of Emona belonging to Italy from the very beginning of its existence as colonia Iulia that the evidence of the Bevke boundary stone is not so decisive in this respect. However, it is certainly decisive in respect to the boundaries between Aquileia and Emona. After its discovery, the hypothesis of Angelina De Laurenzi that Nauportus might have been in possession of its own administrative territory  (13) has to be abandoned, since the boundary stone had been found to the east of Nauportus. The vicus clearly belonged to the territory of Aquileia. Thus, her statement that Emona and Nauportus had not belonged to Italy in the Augustan period should, because of the boundary stone, also be at least rejected in the case of Nauportus  (14).   (10)    (11)    (12)    (13)    (14) 

Saria 1951, p. 1170. It. Hierosol. 561.4; Tab. Peut. 4.20; cf. Šašel Kos 2014 (Poetovio), pp. 139-140. Šašel Kos 2003. De Laurenzi 2001-2002, p. 14. De Laurenzi 2001-2002, p. 16; before the discovery of the boundary stone it has

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Even if we agree that the Bevke cippus cannot be taken as a proof that Emona had belonged to Italy, there are several other weighty arguments in favour of this thesis, and some can be re-examined in the light of the latest research  (15). The opinion of whether Emona was in Italy or Pannonia has always been divided; there has never been a consensus on this matter, as has wrongly been assumed  (16). Actually, the first to introduce the thesis that Emona had been founded in Pannonia under Tiberius in AD 14 was Balduin Saria  (17). His hypothesis is based on at least two false premises, as has been proven by subsequent research: first, the legion XV Apollinaris did not leave Emona for Carnuntum in AD 14, not only because Emona had never been this legion’s fortress  (18), but the legion had also not been transferred to Carnuntum in AD 14. Second, Saria misunderstood the function of pro legato of Titus Iunius Montanus, who was buried at Emona; he had not been an officer acting as a substitute for the legionary legate, but an equestrian officer who performed mainly administrative duties. Such officers were notably employed in those parts of the Empire where Roman dominion had only recently been introduced  (19). Jaroslav Šašel was the first to systematically collect all evidence in favour of Emona having belonged to Italy ever since it had been founded as a Roman colony  (20). This evidence was supplemented in 2003 and supported with additional arguments in 2012. I shall reconsider those that have, in my opinion, been recently misinterpreted  (21). The first criticism concerns Šašel’s claim that a Roman colony could not have been founded on a territory that had not been yet organized as a province. Šašel noted that Emona as an Augustan colony could not have been founded

mainly been believed that Nauportus belonged to Emona; thus still Kovács 2014, p. 48. But see, however, Mommsen, CIL III, p. 483; Zaccaria 1994, particularly p. 323; Zaccaria 1999, particularly p. 201.   (15)  Kovács 2014, pp. 47-49.   (16)  Kovács 2014, p. 47, refers to Mommsen only, not citing (contemporary) scholarly literature regarding Emona as an Italian colony, and wrongly claiming that there was a general opinion of the town having been in Pannonia. The references are collected in Šašel Kos 2012.   (17)  Saria 1938.   (18)  Refuted as ungrounded not only by Schmid 1941, but also by Šašel 1968, pp. 561566; Wells 1974; Kos 1986, pp. 54-56; Plesnicar Gec 1999, pp. 100-106; Vicic 2003, pp. 2324; and Gaspari 2010, p. 113 ff.   (19)  On these two and other Saria’s obsolete arguments, see Šašel Kos 1995.   (20)  Šašel 1989 (1992).   (21)  Kovács 2014, pp. 47-49.



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in Illyricum, since at that time the part of Illyricum, which later became the province of Pannonia, had still been in the phase of conquest. Consequently, it is only logical to assume that the colony was founded in Italy; his argument is perfectly valid. It had been claimed that a brick with stamp LEG XV found at Emona is «one of the most decisive points» against the town having been founded by Augustus, since no other instance had been known «when the military transported bricks from a province to Italy»  (22). The legion, however, had been stationed near Aquileia on and off throughout the proconsulship of Caesar in Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum (Bell. Gall. 1.10.3; cf. 8.24.3 and 54.3). Later, during Octavian’s war in Illyricum, it was occasionally stationed at or near Emona; veterans of this legion were settled in both towns. There is nothing unusual about a brick with the stamp of the legion discovered at Emona; the legion may have produced them while in Italy. One of the arguments concerns Pliny who listed Emona in Pannonia. However, the passage has been analysed several times, and it has been demonstrated that Pliny’s source for this passage was geographical and not administrative  (23). In terms of geography, the Alps were always regarded as a natural boundary of Italy in antiquity  (24). Any boundaries, and not least provincial, were usually established for political and strategic reasons that often ignored geography. Therefore, Tergeste was placed in Illyricum by Pomponius Mela, although it is well known that the town had always belonged to Italy  (25). Mela was one of Pliny’s sources  (26); both had similar problems when describing border areas, since the position of these regions was often perceived as ambiguous. Pliny can, therefore, not be taken as a proof of Emona having administratively belonged to Pannonia. Data from the Geography of Ptolemy can be explained, mutatis mutandis, in a similar way. Moreover, when he wrote, Emona was in Italy in any case  (27); therefore, his data sheds most nd interesting light on how a geographer from the 2 century AD   (22)  Kovács 2014, p. 48.   (23)  Marion 1999; see, for Pliny’s sources, also Sallmann 1971.   (24)  See, e.g., Livy, 21.35.8-9; 39.54.12; Grassl 1996, for other references.   (25)  In 2. 55: Illyricis usque Tergestum, cetera Gallicis Italicisque gentibus cingitur; and in 2.57: Tergeste intumo in sinu Hadriae situm finit Illyricum.   (26)  Brodersen 1994, p. 14; Domic Kunic 2004, pp. 124-125; 134.   (27)  Šašel 1972 (1992).

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perceived the position of this town at the outskirts of Italy, but in an area extending beyond the Alps and the Ocra Pass, i.e. beyond the natural boundaries of Italy. He refers to Emona in two passages, at the end of chapter 14 in his second book (ed. Nobbe), where he explained the geographical position of Upper Pannonia, noting peoples, tribes, and towns, including their geographical coordinates. He placed Emona «between Italy and Pannonia, below Noricum», or, better, «between (that part of) Italy (which is situated) below Noricum, and Pannonia» (2.14.7)  (28). In a similar way, Iulium Carnicum is also placed by Ptolemy between Italy and Noricum (2.13.4). Again, as in the case of Mela’s location of Tergeste, it is clear that Iulium Carnicum was in Italy. It is obvious that in Ptolemy’s time, as much as in Pliny’s, the geographical and administrative borders did not coincide. Ptolemy criticized Marinus of Tyre for having inconsistently described the boundaries of Pannonia. Marinus correctly stated that Italy in the north bordered on Raetia, Noricum, and Pannonia, but in his description Pannonia only bordered in the south with Dalmatia and not with Italy (1.16). Contradictory statements exist because administrative boundaries were a consequence of political decisions that did not conform to the geographical reality. Another passage, in which Emona is mentioned, is again of a geographical nature (8.7.6, ed. Nobbe); the town is placed in Upper Pannonia as one of the three towns (also Poetovio and Scarbantia) serving as geographical measurement points from Alexandria. This directly corresponds to Ptolemy placing Iulium Carnicum in Noricum, again in a similar geographical context (8.7.5). Both towns, Emona and Iulium Carnicum, had the title Iulia, while their inhabitants were inscribed in the same voting tribe of Claudia. The data in Pliny and Ptolemy had to be recapitulated here again, since no counter-arguments have been cited against them, only statements  (29). It has been claimed that the epithet Iulia could also have been given under Tiberius’ reign  (30), although   (28) The latter translation was preferred by Grassl 1994, p. 519; the analysis of the passages, in which Ptolemy placed towns «between» two regions, has shown that all are taken from the geographical context, Grassl 1994, pp. 520-521.   (29)  Kovács 2014, p. 48: «Pliny is quite specific about Emona: he lists it among the other towns of Pannonia [...]». And: «Ptolemy too clearly speaks about the town as being Pannonian (VIII.7.6)».   (30)  Kovács 2014, pp. 48 and 52, citing Scarbantia Iulia; however, no proof is provided.



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to my knowledge there is not a single town in northern Italy and Illyricum, for which it could be proven that this title had been given under Tiberius  (31). The passages in Velleius Paterculus and Tacitus, in which only Nauportus is mentioned and Emona was omitted, have recently been exhaustively discussed  (32). It has nonetheless again been claimed that Emona would have been mentioned by Tacitus, had it existed by the time of the uprising of the Pannonian legions. It has been concluded that «Thus, Emona can only be one of the proximi vici mentioned by Tacitus»  (33). In contrat, the same author claims that «[...] nor should we overlook Tacitus’ remark about the complaints of the Pannonian soldiers that as veterans, they trahi adhuc diversas in terras ubi per nomen agrorum uligines paludum vel inculta montium accipiant (Ann. I.17.3). This description (uligines paludum vel inculta montium accipiant) fits Emona perfectly»  (34). This is contradictio in adiecto, because how could they complain about having received land that could not be cultivated, if there was no colony? Moreover, it has been demonstrated long ago and re-confirmed recently that Tacitus’ account is a dramatic literary description, in which he neglected chronology and topography; soldiers’ complaints were of course generic  (35). Epigraphic evidence confirms the very close connections of Emona and Aquileia, as has been discussed earlier and can here be briefly summarised. Parallel institutions, customs, and some similar patterns in the structure of inhabitants shed light on these aspects. In both towns, several veterans of legions VIII and XV st were settled in the Augustan age and early 1 century AD  (36), while the majority of inhabitants at Emona was represented by branches of Aquileian families, such as the Aelii, Aemilii, Appulei, Barbii, Caeparii, Caesernii, Cantii, Castricii, Claturnii, Clodii, Dindii, Marcii, Petronii, Vellii, and others. At Emona, a pre-Augustan sevir from Aquileia has been attested and later the same seviri and Augustales were also active in both towns. Inscriptions

  (31)  Despite Alföldy 1961; there is not a single proof of a Tiberian colonization in Liburnia, on the contrary, it would seem historically much more justified to expect it under Augustus.   (32)  See Šašel Kos 2012, for Velleius, and Šašel Kos 2014, for Tacitus.   (33)  Kovács 2014, p. 48.   (34)  Kovács 2014, p. 48.   (35)  Goodyear 1972, p. 194 ff.; Kotzé 1996; Pagán 2005.   (36)  Šašel Kos 1995.

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