Senatori romani nel Pretorio di Gortina: le statue di Asclepiodotus e la politica di Graziano dopo Adrianopoli ed. by Francesca Bigi and Ignazio Tantillo (review)

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• Senatori romani nel Pretorio di Gortina: le statue di Asclepiodotus e la politica di Graziano dopo Adrianopoli ed. by Francesca Bigi and Ignazio Tantillo
• Sara Baldin

Senatori romani nel Pretorio di Gortina: le statue di Asclepiodotus e la politica di Graziano dopo Adrianopoli Edited by Francesca Bigi and Ignazio Tantillo Studi 49. Pisa: Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, 2020. Pp. 274. ISBN: 9788876426902

This edited book aims at providing a complete picture of the puzzling group of honorary epigraphy found in Gortina (Crete) in the area of the long-standing Praetorium. The ensemble was dedicated there in connection with reconstruction works during the mandate of the governor Oecumenius Dositheus Asclepiodotus (382–383) for reasons not openly stated. The analysis and interpretation of the thirteen remaining inscribed bases and scattered fragments is the pivotal point of a multidisciplinary survey drawing evidence from several contexts and different approaches to frame the realization within the political fragility in the aftermath of the defeat at Adrianople. The variety yet perfect complementarity of the authors and their expertise is the key point of this book, entirely in Italian, that represents a most welcome synthesis of the results achieved during five excavation campaigns in Gortina (2008, 2010, 2013, 2016) and Olous (2012) by the team of the Università di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale, in collaboration with the Scuola Archeologica Italiana di Atene.

Already partly presented elsewhere, the various contributions and interpretations are offered now in a unitary publication enriched with further discussions on relevant and related topics built on the dialogue with the main primary and secondary literature in light of the newly gathered evidence. The volume is articulated in six independent chapters made mutually coherent and cohesive by internal cross-references that, while anticipating where necessary topics covered elsewhere, do not cause unpleasant and redundant repetition.

The declared purpose of the volume is a new interpretation of the group of inscriptions from a multifaceted perspective involving material, archaeological, textual, prosopographical, chronological, and historical analysis. Tantillo devotes the first chapter to a brief introduction to the province of Crete and its recent administrative history, emphasizing the westward orientation of the region in the bipartite division between the partes Orientis and Occidentis of the prefectural offices. The focus shifts then to the area of the Praetorium. Through rigorous examination of the other honorary epigraphic documentation from the area prior and later to the group, the author demonstrates the long-standing significance of the site as a place of public celebration for local and non-local political authorities and elites. The corpus itself comes to the foreground with the material and epigraphical analysis conducted by Bigi and Tantillo in the second and third chapters. Exceptional in terms of the unity of the project in which such a large number of dedications are included, the dossier is, conversely, part of a long local tradition [End Page 285] of reuse, typical of the late empire, and it is entirely engraved on architectural elements. The choice, made possibly in part with attention to the hierarchy of the honored figures, seems to have fallen on locally available materials decontextualized from their initial purpose. The project seems therefore inconsistent with the reconstructive hypothesis suggested elsewhere, which argues that statues (to date lost) and inscriptions were originally designed as part of a single monument.

The stylistic and formulaic uniformity of the dedications is identified by Tantillo as the second trait d'union of the corpus that confirms its substantial unity of intent and realization. The following prosopographical roundup shows the substantial Roman and Campano-centric perspective of the ensemble composed of figures belonging to the highest senatorial ranks and apparently mostly untethered from any relations with Crete. The comparison of the cursus honorum of the characters, the imperial dedications, and the period of activity of the promoting governor makes it possible to date the overall idea of the project within the first half of 383, though with possibly different stages of planning and implementation.

The presence among the honorees of the renowned Petronius Probus presses Porena into a long and dense discussion articulated in the next two chapters on the aristocrat's complex prefectorial career and...