download article as .pdf: SEG L 1096 alla luce delle iscrizioni gladiatorie della Moesia Inferior e della Thracia

 

The paper focuses on the well-known epistulae addressed by emperor Hadrian to the city of Aphrodisia (SEG L 1096) and, more specifically, on the letter from 125 A.D., especially the paragraph about the exchange of the gladiatorial games, offered by the municipal flamines, for the construction of an aqueduct. Attempting to shed more light on the mechanisms of the organization of munera by the local priests of the imperial cult, this paragraph is put into relation to some less-known inscriptions of munerarii from the zone of Lower Moesia and Thrace, which attest the existence in the Balcan region of the office of ἀρχιερεὺς δι’ ὅπλων. The analysis of this office, together with an alternative interpretation of the Aphrodisias inscription, induces us to approach more cautiously Hadrian’s epistula and keep the problem about the rights and the duties of the municipal flamines still open.