Imp(erator) Caesar Divi f(ilius) Aug(ustus) co(n)s(ul) XII tr(ibunicia) pot(estate) XVIII pontifex maximus ex reditu Dianae fanum et Augusteum muro muniendum curavit C(aio) Asinio [Gallo pro co(n)s(ule),] curatore Sex(to) Lartidio leg(ato)

Αὐτοκράτωρ Καῖσαρ θεοῦ υἱὸς Σεβαστὸς ὕπατος τὸ ιβʹ, δημαρχικῆς ἐξουσίας τὸ ιηʹ ἐκ] τῶν ἱερῶν τῆς θεοῦ προσόδων τὸν νεὼ∙ καὶ τὸ Σεβαστῆον τιχισθῆναι προενοήθηι [ἐπὶ ἀνθυπάτου Γαΐου Ἀσινίου Γάλλου], ἐπὶμελήᾳ Σέξστου Λαρτιδίου πρεσβευτοῦ.

The Emperor Caesar Augustus, son of a god, Consul for the twelfth time, with tribunitian power for the eighteenth time, chief Pontifex, caused the Temple of Diana and the Augusteum to be surrounded by a wall, the cost to be defrayed out of the revenues of the goddess Diana, in the time of C. Asinius Gallus, Pro-consul: Sextus Lartidius the legate had charge of the work.

P. 177 DXXII. Block of white marble, height 1 ft. 5¹∕₂ in.; length 5 ft. 9¹∕₂ in.; found in situ built into the peribolos-wall of the Artemision. Wood, Ephesus, p. 133, and Appendix, Inscriptions from the Peribolus Wall, No. 1; Waddington, Fastes, p. 94; C. I. L. iii, 6070. The lapidary divides ΣΕΒΑΣ ΤΟΣ in line 5, to allow for a hole in the surface of his marble.

Tablet recording the rebuilding of the peribolos of the Artemision by order of Augustus, B.C. 6.

This document is of interest in connexion with the proconsulate of C. Asinius Gallus, lines 3, 6. He was consul B. c. 8, having three years previously married Vipsania, whom Tiberius had divorced B. c. 11, in order to marry Julia. This arrangement, which was due to the commands of Augustus, proves how high Gallus stood in his favour; but Tiberius never forgave the man who had thus married the wife he had loved. M. Waddington (Fastes, p. 96) thinks it may have been by favour of Augustus that Gallus was sent as proconsul to Asia only two years after his consulate. A law of Pompey B. c. 52 had ordained that consuls and praetors might not obtain the government of a province until five years after the resignation of their civic office (Dio Cassius, xl, chs. 30, 56). This law, which was not strictly observed, was re-enacted by Augustus B. c. 27 (Dio Cassius, liii, ch. 14; Suetonius, Octavian, ch. 36) M. Waddington, (Fastes, p. 12) who has made the subject of provincial government his study, can only point to two instances in which Augustus broke through this rule; one is the case of Asinius Gallus. Our inscription is dated by means of the 12th consulate of Augustus, and his 18th tribunitian power. He was consul XII from January to December B. c. 5; and his 18th tribunitian power lasted from June 27 B. c. 6 to P. 178 June 26 B. c. 5. Moreover it is well known that the proconsuls of Asia entered upon their office in the spring (about May) of each year. These facts enable us to determine the date of our inscription within the first four or five months of the year B.C. 5.

In this, as in the two next documents (Nos. DXXIII—DXXIV) the name of C. Asinius Gallus has been anciently obliterated from the marble. In line 3, however, the lapidary has done his work carelessly, and the names C. Asinio remain untouched, while beneath the erasure the words GALLO PROCOS can still be faintly traced. This erasure took place A. D. 30, when the senate sentenced him to death. Dio Cassius tells the story (lviii, 3): τῷ δὲ δὴ Γάλλῳ ὁ Τιβέριος, τῷ τήν τε γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ ἀγαγομένῳ καὶ τῇ περὶ τῆς ἀρχῆς παρρησίᾳ χρησαμένῳ, καιρὸν λαβὼν ἐπέθετο… ἐν γὰρ τῇ αὐτῇ ἡμέρᾳ παρά τε τῷ Τιβερίῳ εἱστιάθη καὶ φιλοτησίας ἔπιε, καὶ ἐν τῷ βουλευτηρίῳ κατεψηφίσθη, ὥστε καὶ στρατηγὸν τὸν δήσοντά τε αὐτὸν καὶ πρὸς τὴν τιμωρίαν ἀπάξοντα πεμφθῆναι. How Tiberius kept him in prison for three years until death by starvation put an end to his sufferings, is well known to us from the pages of Tacitus (Ann. vi, 23, 25).

We learn from our inscription that the Ephesians had already built an Augusteum, or temple to Augustus, within the precinct of the Artemision, The site of this building was thought by Mr. Wood to be indicated by some Roman ruins discovered by him not far from the s. w. corner of the Temple (Ephesus, p. 153; see note on No. CCCXCVIII ante).

This rebuilding of the peribolos has an interesting connexion both with the history of the Artemision, and with the policy of Augustus. We are informed by Strabo (xiv, p. 641) that the limits of the sanctuary had frequently been changed: ἄσυλον δὲ μένει τὸ ἱερὸν καὶ νῦν καὶ πρότερον· τῆς δ’ ἀσυλίας τοὺς ὅρους ἀλλαγῆναι συνέβη πολλάκις. Alexander extended the limit to the radius of ¹∕₈ of a mile from the temple. Mithridates rewarded the Ephesians for their support by slightly enlarging this limit (ibid.: Μιθριδάτου δὲ τόξευμα ἀφέντος ἀπὸ τῆς γωνίας τοῦ κεράμου καὶ δόξαντος ὑπερβαλέσθαι μικρὰ τὸ στάδιον). Next Antony, whose stay at Ephesos with Cleopatra is described by Plutarch (Anton. § 56, 58), doubled the limit, thereby including within the range of the sanctuary ‘a certain portion of the city’ (μέρος τι τῆς πόλεως). As the city and the city wall were a mile distant from the Artemision, the extension of the sanctuary to a radius of ¹∕₄ mile from the temple cannot literally have embraced a portion of the city. Strabo must therefore be understood to be speaking of the public road from the city to the temple from the Magnesian gate, and perhaps of the suburbs of the city. Such an enlargement however was detrimental to public order, for criminals would plead sanctuary and escape from arrest, even in the public streets; and accordingly Augustus annulled the grant of Antony (ἐφάνη δὲ τοῦτο βλαβερὸν καὶ ἐπὶ τοῖς κακούργοις ποιοῦν τὴν πόλιν, ὥστ’ ἠκύρωσεν ὁ Σεβαστὸς Καῖσαρ). The sanctuary underwent a further revision under Tiberius, A. D. 22 (Tac. Ann. iii, 61). The statement of Strabo is confirmed by this inscription, which proves that Augustus not only defined the sacred precinct afresh, but also surrounded it with a peribolos.

Augustus, the restorer of temples and of religion at home, made a point of restoring also to the shrines of Asia the treasures which Antony had carried off to gratify Cleopatra. In many ways the victory of Actium introduced an era of order and comfort to the Greek towns which had suffered a century of Roman misgovemment, and had of late been alternately pampered and plundered by Antony. Strabo speaks of his carrying off a statue from a shrine of Ajax at Rhoeteum in the Troad (xiii, p. 595), and three more statues from the Heraion at Samos (xiv, p. 637). A similar robbery at Ephesos is recorded by Pliny (N. H. xxxiv, 8, § 58): Fecit (Myro) et Apollinem, quem ab triumviro Antonio sublatum restituit Ephesiis divus Augustus admonitus in quiete. To this and similar acts of restitution Augustus refers in the Monumentum Ancyranum, chap. xxiv (Mommsen, Res gestae divi Aug. pp. lxxxx, lxxxxi, 95—96): In templis omnium civitatium pr[ovinci]ae Asiae victor ornamenta reposui, quae spoliatis tem[plis is] cum quo bellum gesseram privatim possederat : [Ἐν ναοῖ]ς π[ασ]ῶν πόλεω[ν] τῆς [Ἀ]σί[ὰ]ς νεικήσας τὰ ἀναθέ[ματα ἀπ]οκατέστησα, [ἃ εἶχεν] ἰ[δίαι] ἱεροσυλήσας ὁ ὑπ᾽ [ἐμοῦ] δ[ι]αγωνισθεὶς πολέ[μιος]. It is in keeping with this view of his conduct that Augustus (through the proconsul Gallus) employs the word ἀποκατέστησεν in the next two documents (Nos. DXXIII, DXXIV).

For the accusative νεώ, line 6, see L. and S. s. v., and compare the N. T. forms Ἀπολλώ, accusative of Ἀπολλώς, and τὴν Κῶ (Moulton’s Winer, p. 72). The forms Σεβαστῆον and ἐπιμελήᾳ are noticeable in an inscription of such good date as this: τιχισθῆναι has been noticed on No. DXXI.

A duplicate of this inscription was found near it, similarly built into the peribolos. The Turkish authorities had stipulated in the firman granted to Mr. Wood, that any duplicates he might discover should be handed over to the Ottoman government. Accordingly Mr. Wood had one of these inscribed stones (the fellow to the present one) conveyed to Smyrna, and formally handed over to the Turkish commissioner who was appointed to watch his proceedings (Ephesus, p. 132). It has now passed into the possession of the German government (Ephem. Epigr.,v, p. 60: ‘Hodie adservatur Berolini in museo n. 969, 9 septem versibus disposita; ex deletis Latinis apparent haec /ASINI / GALLO PRO COS et LEC; Graeca deleta non leguntur.’*

* In the Mittheilungen, x, 1885, p. 401, and the Bull. de Corr. Hell. x, 1886, p. 95, an inscription from Ephesos is published which records the repair of the peribolos-wall (ἀποκατεστάθη τὸ βλαβὴν περιτείχισμα τοῦ Αὐγουστήου) in the time of the Emperor Titus, A.D. 79—80.

Sechs Ausfertigungen der Inschrift 1522 sind bekannt, davon kommen vier aus dem Theater, zwei aus einer Mauer östlich des Panayirdaǧ⁴. Alle sechs Exemplare waren secundär verwendet, mit ihnen wurden Steine gefunden, welche vordem ohne jeden Zweifel im Artemision aufgestellt S.280 waren⁵. Die Fundumstände sprechen dafür, daß auch die sechs Steine mit dem Text der nr. 1522 aus dem Artemision kamen.

⁴ “Quattuor exempla Ephesi in Theatro repperit Wood anno 1869. —- tertium et quartum Graecae tantummodo scripta nomen proconsulis habent item erasum” CIL III 2 (1873) nr. 6070; “duo exempla Ephesi loco antiquo in peribolo Artemisii” CIL III Suppl. 1, 1 (1902) nr. 7118.

⁵ Es sind die Steine 1523 und 1524 (s. u.) und mehrere Quader mit Proxeniedekreten. Diese Quader hatte man aus dem Artemision herbeigeschafft, wie sich eindeutig aus der Formel ergibt, die auf den Steinen immer wiederkehrt: “man solle die Namen der Neubürger im Heiligtum der Artemis aufschreiben”.