ynquirer

With pleasure, Chris. Thank you for the question.

Curator must be a very old legal term, almost as old as the Twelve Tables (ca. 450 BC). Table VI says: “If a man is raving mad, rightful authority over his person and chattels shall belong to his agnates or to his clansmen.” Rightful authority was subsequently called curatela since it is unusual that a legal commission lack a name. (By the way, Lex Plaetoria, whose date is under disputation, is an early evidence of the commission, but by no means the rule that created it, as it is a criminal law to punish fraud on incapable persons.)

Very soon did the Romans show their preference for public works and facilities. Some date a very old cistern, the Regia, as early as the 6th or the 5th century. We don’t know how they managed to build those facilities and keep them in good condition in the oldest times. One thing is sure, though. They lacked bureaucracies; there was not anything like the US department of Transportation, for instance. And we know how they managed to do so in more recent times, say, the first century BC. In 65 BC praetor Thermus - consul in 63 - appears as “curator of Via Flaminia,” according to Cicero; Plutarch tells that Julius Caesar was “curator of Via Appia.” We must presume that being curator as old an undertaking as it was, the same commission was used to build and keep in good condition the oldest aqueducts, the Appia (312 BC) and the Anio Vetus (272 BC). A critical issue is how curators, a notion from the private law - a legal protection for adolescents and mad people - entered the public law.

Civil law worked the marvel. There was scarce bureaucracy, still public works had to be done and public facilities had to be kept in good condition. The contrivance was the notion of fictitious persons (see H. Maine, Ancient Law for further details on the notion). Highways and aqueducts were fictitious persons in legal contemplation. Furthermore, they were as incapable to take legal action by themselves as adolescents and mad people; they were deemed to need a curator as much as incapable people were. One such curator, say, Julius Caesar, was in charge of the management of the patrimony of the fictitious person named “Via Appia” likewise the curator of a child or an imbecile - spin's word - was in charge of the latter’s patrimony.

The importation of curators into public law was of far-reaching consequences. Most minor magistrates began to be called “curators”; thus, there were curators in charge of taking care of the Tiber as well as curators of the gladiator games. At a moment, a reform was carried out. To begin with, those curators deemed to be more important were incorporated into a council, called the Vigintisexviri, or council of the twenty-six, and was decided that as patricians and knights were together in that council, patricians had to be junior ones. Thus, the whole council was pre-senatorial in the double sense that patricians in there were not yet senators and that knights in there might become patricians - and therefore senators - owing to Augustus’ new power to create patricians from knights.

In 13 BC a senatus-consult rendered the Vigintisexviri a preserve of the equestrian order - knights - so excluding patricians whatever from those offices. Later on, Augustus reduced the number from twenty-six to twenty, and the name of the council turned to Vigintiviri. Augustus himself, who had been a member of the council in his youth, promoted the creation of a college (or a club) of all those that had formerly belonged to the Vigintisexviri or the Vigintiviri. That college was called collegium curatorum operum locorumque publicorum, that is, the “college of curators in charge of public works and infrastructures,” likewise there was a collegium of former consuls, another of former praetors, and a third of former quaestors. Of all of these, however, the members of the college of curators were closest to Augustus‘ kin.

Provincial administration, since the late third century BC in Sicily, brought new problems with it. Treatment of highways and aqueducts as fictitious persons was useful wherever civil law was fully applicable. Wherever civil law was only partially applicable, or worse still, in those lands in which ius gentium was prevalent the issue was fairly different. These lands were inevitably ‘conflictive’ because imposition of the Roman law was seen as in detriment of local law and traditions. In those lands the smooth operation of civil law had to be superseded by harsh actuation of the Roman legions. The fiction of public works and facilities as incapable persons in need of a curator would not do. Still, such public works and facilities were all the more convenient as the Romans thought that highways were necessary for quick movement of legions and aqueducts improved the people’s standard of living, so inducing them to be less rebellious. Although curators might not do their work as magistrates proper, promagistrates to act in their place - that it, procurators - applied.

Augustus chose his procurators from among the collegium curatorum operum locorumque publicorum because of two reasons. In the first place, because they had experience in the management of public works; secondly, because he trusted those closest to his kin. (Not to be excluded that he might have organized the collegium with a view to strengthen his personal bonds with men to whom he would entrust the difficult business to rule faraway, conflictive lands.) Sabinus, whom Josephus calls “Caesar’s procurator,” was one such man to rule Judea.

In contradistinction to Augustus, Tiberius lacked any special relationship to the college of curators. There is no reason, however, to think that he discontinued the tradition established by his predecessor. In all likelihood, he chose both Gratus and Pilate from the rank of curatores operum locorumque publicorum. Josephus’ report that Pilate took money from the Temple to build an aqueduct is the utmost significant in context.

rlogan

Well, ynquirer in his last post appears to not have one - at least insofar as the starting point for argument, which was originally

Q: Should Tacitus have referred to Pilate as Prefect or procurator?

Prefect is no longer even a word in his latest posts.


So I guess we are back to this:

Either the interpolator of the famous Tacitus passage on Nero's alleged persecution of the Christians was sloppy, or Tacitus himself was working off christian sources.

Laura D.

Should we discount Richard Carrier's theory, e.g.:

Pilate was almost certainly holding both posts simultaneously, a practice that was likely established from the start when Judaea was annexed in 6 A.D. And since it is more insulting (to an elitist like Tacitus and his readers) to be a procurator, and even more insulting to be executed by one, it is likely Tacitus chose that office out of his well-known sense of malicious wit. Tacitus was also a routine employer of variatio, deliberately seeking nonstandard ways of saying things (it is one of several markers of Tacitean style). So there is nothing unusual about his choice here.

I lack the educational background to evaluate it myself. In any case, he does not cite his sources in that review. So his opinion isn't really relevant to this thread. I was just curious if his theory made any sense to those who are familiar with the "markers of Tacitean style."

God bless,



Laura

French Prometheus

As andrewcriddle said, the basic facts about Alexander's life are well-established but the details are not. However, that's still more than what we can say about Jesus whose very existence is open to debate, let alone his whereabouts or his original message.

As a side note, I personally tend to think that there probably was a HJ about whom we know next to nothing. There's clearly no evidence for that but the religious and cultural context of early 1st century Judaea probably generated a lot of similar would-be prophets. It's not a big step, even for an atheist like myself, to consider than one of them was used as the basis for the Jesus story.

rlogan

Hello Laura D.

Thanks for reminding me. I apparently edited my comment about that out since my last post pertained strictly to the giant column of procurator smoke billowing about.


Carrier mentioned that he had a publication coming out on this in the quote you made. He's really going to have to lay a concrete foundation down for this. Back the "style" business up generally and then demonstrate how that applies in context.

This passage is so brief with respect to Pilate - just a passing glance, really - that this job is a pretty tough sell.

It is pretty logical that an interpolator would fall into the anachronism. But I am willing to listen to the argument.


May Allah smile on you.

Chris Weimer

OK, so there's two arguments going on here. One debating whether procurator comes from procurare or curator (the latter), and the debating whether Tacitus should have used procurator or praefectus (unsure of that myself, actually).

As far as the etymology of procurator is concerned, spin hit the nail with the analogy of consul -> proconsul. Promagistrates were magistrates who held the same duties but with extended power. Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities has a great article on what exactly a curator is. Esentially:

Note especially the emphasis on guarding property (in case of fraud). The usage became associated with protecting the property of Augustus.

Regardless, the inscription of Pontius Pilate as prefect pretty much prevents that petty argument, doesn't it?

Roger Pearse

Difficult to say; we'd need to know for certain that Pilate was not procurator (the evidence is more murky on this than is perhaps apparent: at one stage even the prefect of Egypt was called procurator under the Claudian reform); and we'd need to know whether Tacitus would always use the correct title for the period concerned. I don't think we are well enough informed to reach solid conclusions, IMHO.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

jgibson000

What we need to know is whether Tacitus -- and others like him -- use the terms Procuator and Prefect interchangeably, especially when speaking of those who held the office of Prefect before Claudius.

Jeffrey Gibson

spin

Could I have the reference to this last item please?

The only pre-Claudian reference in the Annals to a procurator is 4.15:

Everything indeed was as yet in the hands of the Senate, and consequently Lucilius Capito, procurator of Asia, who was impeached by his province, was tried by them, the emperor vehemently asserting "that he had merely given the man authority over the slaves and property of the imperial establishments; that if he had taken upon himself the powers of a praetor and used military force, he had disregarded his instructions; therefore they must hear the provincials."

Capito was not the governor of Asia. Asia had a proconsul, a fact Tacitus refers to elsewhere (eg Volesus Messala, A. 3.68, etc.). Capito had restricted fiscal powers. I think Tacitus makes us aware that he is aware of the administrative role of a procurator prior to Claudius's reforms.

In A. 15.26, Tacitus writes:

Written orders were sent to the tetrarchs, the tributaries, kings, prefects and procurators, and all the praetors who governed the neighbouring provinces, to obey Corbulo's commands

Tacitus here indicates that he understands that these roles were not the same.

Tacitus acknowledges that procurators were given magisterial powers by Claudius in A.12.60

That same year the emperor was often heard to say that the legal decisions of his procurators ought to have the same force as if pronounced by himself.

Finally, Tacitus tells us in H.5.9,

The kings were either dead, or reduced to insignificance, when Claudius entrusted the province of Judaea to the Roman Knights or to his own freedmen, one of whom, Antonius Felix, indulging in every kind of barbarity and lust, exercised the power of a king in the spirit of a slave.

The reference to freedmen excludes the possibility of the position being that of a prefect because freedmen couldn't hold public offices. The position was that of procurator, ie govenance of Judea was put into the hands of procurators under Claudius.

Now, if anyone has any contrary evidence that provinces were placed in the hands of procurators before the time of Claudius I'd be glad to hear about it. Otherwise I'd think that Tacitus's understanding of the difference between prefects and procurators is clear, that he used his official terms with some exactness. This means that the reference in A.15.44 to Pontius Pilate as a procurator in charge of Judea is not Tacitean.


spin

Chris Weimer

Even having been given the concise arguments, I still failed to see them...

I'm going to have to check the Oxford Latin Dictionary for a better etymology for some better dates on the promagistrates...

But in short, well, damn, I still don't know what the hell is going on. Too much booze these days, I guess. Nunc tempus est bibendi...

*Chris kicks himself for not reading clearly, not looking closely, and failing himself in general*