Antiquity
7. The Apparitorial Orders and Legitimation ! !
augustales.152 As I will now assess, due largely to Augustus’ institutionalization of the civil service, a broad spectrum developed within the praeconium by the early imperial period, with civic honors going predominantly to the criers employed by the imperial house and the administrative ordines. Even the orders of apparitores currently employed in their trade, however, were similarly excluded from civil magistracies. This exclusion was perhaps an attempt at controlling corruption or abuse of power, yet the ban may also illustrate that within the imperial world there was an increased use of and control over them. !
As I will argue, the prestige attached to imperial administrative positions provided apparitorial praecones with status, but perhaps also served the purposes of the state: to assure confidence among the people in their messages and to insure subservience from the
messenger. Furthermore, the legitimization of the apparitorial praeco by Augustus and successive emperors more deeply separated these praecones from the private praecones, who were still active professionals within provincial cities. Central questions will therefore be how institutions such as the imperial house and the military conferred honor on these criers, and whether the bestowal of status can be viewed—as legal marginalization has been viewed—as an alternate means of control used to maintain social order in Roman society.!
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7. The Apparitorial Orders and Legitimation ! !
Gaius Calpurnius Quirina Apollinaris, son of Gaius, made this ! monument for myself and the inheritors of our family name, !
for (my) father, Gaius Calpurnius Apollinaris, son of Spurus, of the Collina tribe!
apparitor of Augustus, praeco of the Julian order of criers…153!
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In the town of Cures Sabini, just north of Rome, a son erected an epitaph citing the offices of his father, Gaius Calpurnius Apollinaris. The imperial era monument proudly cites the elder Calpurnius as an apparitor (assistant) to the imperial house and a praeco of the ‘decuria Julia’. While little is known about the exact function or hierarchy of this order of criers, they appear to have assisted the consuls within the city of Rome. Other epitaphs cite the position of ‘apparitor Augusti’ and indicate that—like the epitaphs associated with the
familia Caesaris—any association with the imperial house was considered a position of status.154 Marcus Falcidius, a praeco and apparitor Augusti, was part of the ‘ordo decuriae Iuliae praeconiae consularis,’ and his son went on to be adlected into the order of decurions for the Italian town of Puteoli.155 As the epitaph of Calpurnius indicates, apparitorial
positions and those connected with the imperial house were a source of identity and prestige—offices to be touted in one’s epitaph, ones which could elevate entire families. !
While the exact organization and administration of the Roman civil service is—as A.H.M. Jones has pointed out—often obscure, it is evident from these and other imperial inscriptions that service within the decuriae of apparitores that assisted the Roman consuls, municipal magistrates, and provincial administrators was a source of status and honor.156 Besides the aforementioned plaque—cited in the lex Cornelia de XX quaestoribus—that held the names of currently serving quaestorial apparitores, it appears that in the imperial period,
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some apparitors may have also had specially reserved seats in the theater.157 The apparitorial
praeco predominates among the surviving inscriptions for the praeco, often exemplifying the social mobility provided them within the apparitorial order. These men not only functioned to increase the cachet of an official by serving in his entourage, but they also provided
important services within Roman society. The legal evidence supports the necessity for these civil servants in Rome and within the provinces as the empire expanded in the last century BCE, especially in their roles as disseminators of law and maintainers of public order. !
The employment of apparitores by municipal duumvirs and the existence of
apparitorial orders within provincial cities in the Republic have already been established, as evinced by the charter from Urso (c. 44 BCE). The charter supports the notion that the apparitorial order was customarywithin Roman municipalities. While extant epitaphs for apparitorial praecones are fewer in number as compared to those for other apparitores, new avenues for status appear to have been established for the crier in the imperial period, e.g., becoming a praeco of the decuria Julia.158 As Purcell has noted, the role of praeco, even
within the administrative orders, was a junior and lesser-regarded apparitorial post indicated by very few apparitorial epitaphs; however, it did provide a position of status conferred by the elite.159 The role of these decurial criers in promulgating laws, tax edicts, and various other imperial announcements was essential to the proper functioning of the empire. !
The central importance of praecones and other lower-level functionarieswithin the Roman military and administration is echoed in legal evidence from the Digest and the !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! %*.!15="4RJ!H:43J!4254!5!8933F;5H!E2:!69:RZ24!=259Z3J!5Z5"HJ4!5!P:;5H!;<0;1(E5J!93E59F3F!6K!63"HZ! Z"#3H!J354J!5;:HZ!423!P/,.*+;1(:8!423!49"6RH3J!>15=C!I88L(%)C%+0!`#/6;+.*(;.(,9901,.*+/(:+,;7/07(*:;+,;( 5*901(/8(.E;,.+*(/8.;+(P/,.*+;1(.+/608/9/*1(?,.0+LC?C!Ö2"73!423!:+,;9*8;1(593!H:4!;3H4":H3F!JQ3="8"=577K(!"4!"J! 7"V37K!4254!423!3H4"934K!:8!423!J4588!25F!JQ3="57!J354J!E"42"H!423!4235439C!! %*,!XQQ3HF"$!'C)L!@C(!! %*@!MR9=377(![XQQ59"4:93J(~!%/.C!!
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Justinian Code. In the Digest, the late second century jurist Tarruntenus Paternus records in his book on military affairs that within the military community, praecones were immunes—
persons exempt from basic chores—along with butchers, hunters, those who dealt with sacrificial animals, suppliers to the army, couriers, trumpeters, and numerous other
professionals.160 The exemption of these professionals from other tasks assumedly allowed them to concentrate on their duties, but was also a perk. Following the institution of liturgical services in Late Antiquity, exemptions from larger munera became beneficial. Beginning in the fourth century, those apparitores within the administrative offices of the Master of the Cavalry and those apparitores attached to the proconsul and legates received exemptions from compulsory municipal services—making them competitive positions to attain.161 !
As the exemption of certain apparitores from liturgies indicates, these men were considered essential to the functioning of the empire. Furthermore, they were a growing class of persons within the empire—400 served within the office of the proconsul, and 600 served the Count of the Orient alone—an indication that these persons were increasingly depended upon to oversee the functioning of the empire.162 The necessity of the praecones, in
particular, perhaps derived from their pivotal role as communicative intermediaries; a role that made them essential to military and administrative operations. As the empire expanded both geographically and administratively from the first to the third centuries CE,
interconnectivity and reliable communication with the center—the emperor—became crucial.
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Criers were key agents in the establishment and maintenance of this interconnectivity, and their function in the imperial period reveals the systemic effects of imperial expansion and Augustus’ expansion of the administrative orders, but also portrays the exceedingly oral nature of Roman society.