The Tabula of Banasa and the Constitutio Antoniniana

Abstract

At long last the text of the Tabula of Banasa, of which so tantalising a glimpse was given to historians by the brief strip-tease of CRAI 1961, has been revealed in full view. In their new publication Professors W. Seston and M. Euzennat have confined their elucidations largely to the clarification of the tribal setting of the beneficiaries, and to the technicalities of the drafting of imperial documents revealed by this text. They have not added to their brief but valuable comments on the contribution of the Tabula to the interpretation of the Constitutio Antoniniana known from the famous P. Giessen 40. Meanwhile other documents have accrued that are relevant, notably the colloquia texts of the Baquates, of which the French scholars make some use, and the long letter of Marcus Aurelius to the Athenians about matters of civic status, which appeared too late for their study. Hence a deeper cultivation of the excessively exhausted soil of P. Giessen 40, enriched by new material, may yet yield a crop.