THE ORIGIN AND CAREER OF Q. POMPEIUS FALCO A. R. BIRLEY The University of Manchester The cosm opolitan elite that em erged in the late first and early second centuries A. D. was form ed by the coalescence of leading families from the eastern provinces as well as from Italy and the w est; and this background at least equipped them for careers that might take them to half a dozen or m ore provinces in the course of tw enty five years or so of public service. Pompeius Falco is not, therefore, completely exceptional, b u t few senators are recorded in so m any different provinces, and he has, further, the distinction of figuring in the correspondence of both Pliny and Fronto as well as being the recipient of an interesting rescript from the em peror Hadrian. In spite of the variety of evidence he rem ains a shadowy figure, and it may be instruct­ ive to investigate him again here by way of tribute to a m aster of epigraphy and prosopography — especially since M. Pflaum has him self devoted some attention to m em bers of Falco’ s fam ily .1 The m an’s origin is som ething of a mystery, but he was certainly well- connected by m arriage. His wife was Sosia Polla,2 daughter of Q. Sosius Senecio (cos. ord. 99, II ord. 107)3 and granddaughter of Sex. Julius Frontinus (III ord. 100) ; 4 and he was to leave distinguished descendants, ordinary consuls in 149, 169 and 193, the last of whom was a contender for the throne during his consulship .5 Custom arily known by the tria nom ina Q. Pompeius Falco, he had a whole string of additional names, as m ay be seen from the Tarracina inscription ( CIL X 6321 = D. 1035) : Q. Roscio Sex. f. / Quir. Coelio Murenae / Silio Deciano VibulKPyo / Pio Iulio Eurycli H ere(u)lano / Pompeio Falconi cos. / XVvir. s. f. procos, provine. Asiae leg. pr. pr. / imp. Caes. Troiani Hadriani Aug. provine. / Brittanniae leg. pr. pr. imp. Caes Nervae / Troiani Aug. Germanici Dacici / [prjovinc. Moesiae inferior, curatori /[vz'a]e Traianae et leg. Aug. pr. pr. provinc. / [Iudaeae e]t leg. X Fret. leg. pr. pr. prov. Lyciae j [et Pamphylliae leg. leg. V Macedonie. / [bello Dacico donis m ilita rib u s donato /... The final five of these names w ere no doubt inherited w ith a legacy from C. Julius Eurycles Herculanus L. Vibullius Pius, last representative of the royal house of Sparta, who died in 130 or shortly afterw ards .6 The previous pair of nam es presum ably derives from L. Silius Decianus (cos. suff. 94 ) 7 or from a son of his. But in no case does the evidence enable us to judge w hether there w ere fam ily connections or only ties of friendship to justify the legacies thus attested. Roscius Coelius — and for that m atter M urena — m ust have been acquired by descent, inheritance or adoption from the M. Roscius Coelius whom Agricola succeeded as legate of XX Valeria Victrix in 70 and who rose to be consul in 81.8 F urther evidence of his wide-ranging links is provided by the extraordinary nom enclature of his grandson, the consul of 169, which includes, in addition to Falco's six nomina and five of his six cognomina — Falco alone is om itted — a further eight nomina and thirteen cognomina, add­ ing for good m easure the praenomina of Frontinus, Julius Eurycles and Vibul­ lius Pius, to produce the record total of 38 names. W ith filiation and tribe they occupy nine and a half lines of the inscription erected to him as patron by the senate and people of Tibur (CIL XIV 3609 = D. 1104 = Inscr. It. IV. 1 ,126). Falco’s son, the consul of 149, is less well recorded, but two inscriptions that may be referred to him — as M. Pflaum has dem onstrated — attest seven of the additional nam es borne by the cos. 169, and M. Pflaum has no hesitation in aw arding Falco’s son the full 38 nam es borne by the grandson .9 One or two of the personages concerned m ust rem ain uncertain, but m ost are clearly identi­ fiable, revealing a veritable netw ork of alliances and inheritance . 10 This makes it all the m ore tantalising that there is no obvious source for the principal cognomen in the case of either Falco him self or of his son and grandson, each of whom w ere nam ed Priscus. The latter is colourless and K ajanto has counted 760 examples, m aking it one of the com m onest of all Roman nam es . 11 But Falco is alm ost unique. Apart from m em bers of this family, only two other cases exist (CIL III 8160, VI 17982), the first of which is doubtful. Schulze is hesitant about an E truscan derivation ,12 and it seems likely th at it was a descriptive surnam e of the traditional kind, referring not only to the bird but to a de­ form ity of the toes .13 F urther speculation here is unprofitable and one m ust tu rn elsew here for clues to Falco’s origin. The inscription at Hierapolis Casta­ baia in Cilicia, erected by A uX o? Aacßspicq Kapieptvo? y.at Aaßspic? Kap.spivoc utop aütsö, éy.axovTàpxr,? XcY.s'May.sSoviy.^; to honour Falco T o v iSiov ® { X o v v.al euspyetYiv, may be of som e assistance. Cilicia was not one of the provinces in which Falco served at any stage in his career, and we may be justified in supposing that the reason for an inscription being set up in his honour at this place was that it was his hom e, if not th at of the dedicators. The balance is tipped in favour of the form er alternative by the conjunction of nam es of the dedicators, Laberius Cam erinus, suggestive of an Italian rath er th an a provincial origin; yet there was no Italian settlem ent in Cilicia w here one m ight expect to find rare Italian nam es persisting. The nomen Pompeius is of course commonly found in the Greek east and neither that nor the tribe Quirina create any dif­ ficulties. 14 It could well be th at an ancestor, a Cilician dignitary, had been granted Rom an citizenship by Pompeius Magnus in the 60 s B. C. An alternative suggestion has been put forw ard, th at Falco’s ancestor m ight be a known client of Pompey, the historian Theophanes of Mytilene, whose descendants still flourished in the early second century, having acquired senatorial rank three or four generations previously .15 However this may be, Falco certainly had strong links w ith the Greek world — eastern origin has been suggested for his father-in-law Sosius Se­ necio , 16 although this is perhaps no m ore decisive for Falco himself than is the m arriage of his great-grandson the consul of 193 w ith a m em ber of a notable Lycian family, or the alliances w ith Italian and w estern families which the nom enclature reveals.17 At all events, he may be regarded as a fine specimen of the new m ultinational aristocracy. Pliny’ s letter (E p . 1.23) in response to his enquiry w hether or not he should continue to practise law during his tribunate of the plebs, may be assigned to the year 97, 18 which m akes it probable that he was born ca. 70. His initial post in the vigintivirate, as a Xvir stlitibus iudicandis, shows that Domitian had not specifically m arked him out for m ilitary advancem ent, 19 but he nonetheless commenced a m ilitary career by a term as tribunus laticlavius. In the inscription from Hierapolis, the only one in which the earliest stages of his cursus are preserved, the legion is given as X F[ret.~\ — which he was later to com m and as praetorian legate of Judaea. But E. Groag pointed out in one of his contributions to R itterling's Fasti des römischen Deutschland*0 that this should be corrected on the basis of an unpublished fragm ent from Ephesus, ’demzufolge Roscius Pompeius Falco trib. mil. in der leg. X Gemma (nicht in der X F retensis) gewesen ist.' If the reading in the Hierapolis in­ scription is accurate, one would be obliged to conclude th at the legion’s title had been incorrectly transcribed, by confusion w ith the later mention of X Fretensis in line 6 . Certainly, although the contrary is som etimes asserted, im perial practice seems not to have favoured repeated service in the same legion or even in the same province, at different stages in the cursus.2 1 X Gemina was still at th at time in Lower Germany, and there can have been little opportunity of active service — unless he had already taken up his commission by the tim e of S aturninus’ uprising in January 89, which is not impossible. The quaestorship, at Rome, followed, then the tribunate of the piebs — already referred to — in 97 and the praetorship.2 - Next came the com m and over the legion V Macedonica and m ilitary decorations for what m ust have been the First Dacian war, of 101—102. He proceeded from this to the governorship of Lycia-Pamphylia, probably, as Sir Ronald Syme has pointed out, in 103, the year when his predecessor Trebonius M ettius Modestus was consul suffect.23 Unusually, this appointm ent was followed by the governorship of a second praetorian province, Judaea. The first recorded parallel comes from many decades later, in the difficult period of the 160 s when plague and w arfare had created gaps in the ranks of eligible m en .24 It m ight be that the annexation of Arabia in 105—106 m ade it seem desirable to have a particularly experienced m an in the adjacent province .25 His consulate seems to have come in Septem ber 108. Although only the le t t e r s ------ — ius F ------- are recorded, the identification looks thoroughly plausible , 2'6 and there would be no difficulty about accepting it were it not for the anom alous language of the Hierapolis inscription, in which he is described as leg. Aug. leg. X Fret, et leg. pr. pr. [prjovinciae Iudaeae con­ sidaris. An inscription from Athens honouring his granddaughter Sosia Fal- conilla appears to echo this language, for, while the lady’s other distinguished forebears are called una-coc. Falco is apparently labelled b~zt c /.ó ; . 27 On the other hand, elsew here the term cos. is applied to him, w hich, although it might represent co (n )s(u la ris), appears not to have been so intended on the inscrip­ tions from Tarracina, M inturnae and C irta .28 The question m ust rem ain un­ resolved, although it may be noted that, even if Falco’s nam e is restored on the Fasti Ostienses for 108 — w hich is the last year w ith any vacancies until 114 — he need not necessarily have come to Rome to bear the fasces. In all probability he acquired consular status in Judaea, w hether as consul suffect or as adlectus inter consulares, and may well have rem ained there for m uch of th e following year. While he was in th at province, it would seem, Falco received a letter from Pliny (Ep. 7.22), who requested an appointm ent as tribune for his friend Cornelius Minicianus, ornam entum regionis meae. Although Pliny hoped that his friend could thus om it the militia prima, Falco evidently had no vacancy for a tribune, for an inscription from Bergomum ( CIL V 5126 = D. 2722) reveals th at the post held by M inicianus in Judaea was that of praef. coh. prim . Damascf enorum ) ; he was later to obtain a tri­ bunate in I I I Augusta.2 9 During the ten years or so th at separated this from his first letter from Pliny, Falco had had one further missive, on the subject of light verse (4.27). The husband of Sosia Polla m ight well be expected to have shared the literary interests of her father and grandfather. After his retu rn to Italy Falco was co-opted into the X V viri sacris faciun- dis.zo Sir Ronald Syme has eloquently described w hat this may have m eant to Tacitus som e tw enty or thirty years earlier: ’The quindecimviri em brace a superior selection — fashionable young men, w ith literary talent at a prem ium , and certain wise old politicians. To be of the com pany was delight and instruction — who could fail to benefit from Fabricius Veiento? It was also a prom ise (seldom delusive) of further honours ’ .31 Veiento was doubtless dead by the tim e th at Falco entered the college,32 but there were others from whose com pany he could not have failed to benefit, not least the historian Cornelius Tacitus. In the m eantim e, it was probably after his retu rn from Judaea to Rome that he received a final letter from Pliny (9.15), a com plaint about the trials of landòwnership, coupled w ith a request for inform ation from the capital: tu consuetudinem serva nobisque sic rusticis urbana acta perscribe , 33 In spite of the favour suggested by the consulate — at a relatively early age34 — and a m ajor priesthood, Falco’s only em ploym ent for some years seems to have been as curator of the via Traiana, but it was probably as first holder of the post, for the new road, from Beneventum to Brundisium, was com m enced in 109 and com m em orated on the coinage of 112.35 One m ight have expected him to have received a com m and in the P arthian W ar in 113, not least because his influential father-in-law Sosius Senecio was apparently still alive at this tim e .36 At all events, by 116 he had returned to active service, for in th at year37 he is found governing the large consular province of Moesia Inferior — greatly extended from its original proportions for it now included a large trac t beyond the Lower Danube .38 He may, indeed, have taken up this post as early as 113.3 9 He was still in Lower Moesia in 117, and was probably there when T rajan died .40 It is reasonable to conjecture that he m ust have m et and conferred w ith the new em peror — who had been a friend and protégé of his father-in-law Senecio — w hen Hadrian came swiftly to the Lower Danube in the w inter of 117—118.4 1 Falco may well have been concerned in the delicate negotiations with the refractory king of the Roxolani, who com plained about the Roman failure to pay him his subsidy ; 42 and, no less im portant, in H adrian’s decision to abandon the transdanubian portion of his province .43 There were personal reasons, besides, to m ake this a mem orable year for Falco. Although he m ust now have been in his late forties, his wife bore him a son, the future consul of 149.4 4 They may well have been m arried for m any years — it will be recalled th a t Agricola’s wife bore him a son some tw enty years after the b irth of the daughter whom Tacitus m arried .45 B ut no other children of Falco and Sosia are known. The em pire was beset w ith troubles on all sides during the first year of H adrian’s reign ,46 and it may well have been that the em peror received news of disturbances in B ritain while still in Moesia, and th at he decided to send Falco to th at province soon after m eeting him. To date the B ritish governor­ ship, there is only the diploma of 17 July 122 (CIL XVI 69), issued to troops dimissis honesta missione per Pom peium Falconem, b u t still serving under his successor Platorius Nepos, who can only have arrived shortly before. It is not unreasonable to suppose that Falco was in B ritain for about four years, from 118—122.4 7 Hence, although no epigraphic records of his activity in B ritain survive, ’the odds are ra th e r b etter than four to one’, as Eric Birley has p u t it,48 for the rescript to him deriving from his service there rather than in Moesia. It concerns the testam ent of a soldier who had com m itted suicide : if he had taken his life taedio vitae vel dolore, Hadrian ruled, the will would be valid; b u t not if he chose death ob conscientiam delicti militaris (Digest 28.3.6). The period of Falco’s governorship was once thought to have been m arked by a m ajor disaster, the destruction of the Ninth legion, 49 but, although it is now clear th a t it survived, to m eet its end elsewhere,50 there m ust have been fighting. The dem eanour of the personified province on coins assignable ca. 119 is thought to suggest trouble within the province ,51 and it has been proposed, on archaeological grounds, that the building of the continuous frontier b arrier between Tyne and Solway commenced in 120 rather than in 122, and hence under Falco’s supervision rather than that of Nepos.52 However this may be, Falco’s presence on the Lower Danube in 117—118 should have m ade him fam iliar w ith the policy of retrenchm ent at first hand, and he may well have been asked to prepare the ground for the erection of H adrian’s Wall by com pleting a strategic w ithdraw al from Scotland. Almost im mediately after his retu rn from Britain, Falco was successful in the ballot and obtained the proconsulship of Asia, w here he is attested in 124, having evidently taken up the post in the previous sum m er .53 While he was in the province, two delegates from Flavia Neapolis (Sam aria) in Judaea came to honour him at Ephesus, on the m otion of the council and people of their town, as th eir saviour and benefactor.54 He was thus still rem em bered in Judaea a decade and a half after his governorship, and doubtless he was one of several Judaean experts with whom Hadrian was to discuss his fateful Judaean policy in the course of the next few years. One m ay assum e that Falco passed the rem ainder of his life in com fortable retirem ent ; but he was a figure whose advice m ust have been canvassed on a num ber of issues. He is last heard of in a letter of the young M. Aurelius to his tu to r Fronto, w ritten in 143 and recalling a visit which he and Antoninus Pius had paid to Falco's estate three years previously (Fronto, ad M. Caes. 2.6 = Haines i 140 = 29 van de H out). He had shown his adm iring im perial visitors a product of his ex­ perim ents in arboriculture .55 It m ight be that Antoninus had also availed him self of the opportunity to discuss the situation in B ritain — w here the frontier w as being moved north once m o re : 56 b u t th at is pure speculation, as so m uch in the field of prosopography m ust be. 1 Augustanius Alpinus Bellicius Sol­ lers, membres de la gens Cassia, Archivo espanol de arqueologia 39 (1966), 3—23; L’ inscription de Bologne concernant Q. Pompeius Sosius Priscus, Bonner Jahr­ bücher 172 (1972), 18—23. 2 CIL III 7663 (Samos) = D. 1037; CIL VIII 7066 (Cirta) = D. 1105 = ILAlg II 652; etc. 3 E. Groag, RE 3 A (1927), 1180—1193; C. P. Jones, Sura and Senecio, JRS 60 (1970), 98—104 (although I am doubtful about the identification of the ignotus D. 1022 with Senecio). 4 PIR2 J 322 5 Wolf, RE 21 (1952), 2288—2290; and see now the important article by Pflaum, Bonner Jahrb. 172 (1972), 18 ff. (cited in n. 1 above). 6 PIR2 , J 302. Falco seems to have acquired these names after 116, since they are not on the Hierapolis inscrip­ tion (discussed below); but since they do not feature on the new inscrip­ tion from Ephesus either (n. 54, below), the terminus post quem should perhaps be extended to 124 — unless a desire for brevity was decisive in both cases. Jo­ nes, JRS 60 (1970), 103 suggests that he may have inherited the names from Se­ necio, following R. Syme, The Ummidii, Historia 17 (1968), 72—105, p. 100 f. 7 E. Groag, RE 3 A (1927), 77—79, sug­ gesting that he was son of the poet Si­ lius Italicus. The consular date there gi­ ven must be adjusted to 94: A. Degrassi, I Fasti consolari (1952), 28. 8 E. Groag, RE 1 A (1914), 1121. 9 Bonner Jahrb. 172 (1972), 18 ff. 10 Note that the new inscription from Bologna gives the cos. ord. 149 the na­ mes Julius Acer (not A per): see Pflaum’ s comments, Bonner Jahrb. 172 (1972), 2 2 f.; he notes that these names and the cognomina Rutilianus Rufinus firmly at­ tested for the cos. 149 on VI 31782 sug­ gest a connection with M. Sedatius Seve- rianus cet. (cos. 153), who was a Gaul (D. 9487, Sarmizegethusa; Lucian, Alex. 27). Augustanius Alpinus cet. was from Ve­ rona, see Pflaum, Arch. esp. arq. 39 (1966), 3 ff. (n. 1 above). 11 I. Kajanto, The Latin Cognomina (1965), 288. 12 W. Schulze, Zur Geschichte lateini­ scher Eigennamen (1904), 272. 43 TLL VI. 1, 175—6, s. v. ’ falco’. 14 Mommsen made this point long ago, ad CIL III 12117: 'Titulum centurio exercitus Moesiacae videtur dedicasse in patria non sua sed honorati, quem Grae­ cum hominem fuisse et tribus significat et quod inter vocabula eius Eurycles.' I suggested Cilician origin in 'The Ro­ man governors of Britain’, Epigr. Stud. 4 (1967), 63—102, p. 69. The suggestion, which I owe to E. Birley, was regarded favourably by Jones, JRS 60 (1970), 103. L. Petersen, who takes the two Laberii to be natives of Hierapolis (PIR2 , L 5) does not consider the difficulties: see P. A. Brunt, Italian Manpower 225 B. C. — A. D. 14 (1971), 227 for the paucity of Italian settlement in Cilicia. It may be noted here that the town is sometimes mistakenly spelt Hieropolis: see the stern correction by L. Robert, in A. Du- pont-Sommer and L. Robert, La déesse de Hierapolis Castabaia (Cilicie) (1964), 17—22. 15 Thus L. Schumacher, Prosopogra- phische Untersuchungen zur Besetzung der vier hohen römischen Priesterkolle­ gien im Zeitalter der Antonine und der Severer (96— 235 n. Chr.) (1974), 256 and stemma (Anlage VII), taking up a sug­ gestion of J. Morris, Changing fashions in Roman nomenclature in the early em­ pire, Listy filologické 8 6 (1963), 34—46, p. 42 f. 16 Jones, JRS 60 (1970), 103; Syme, Historia 17 (1968), 101 n. 127: 'perhaps descendant of a dynastic house in Cili­ cia’. Syme, ap. Jones 103 n. 64 cites the Falconilla, daughter of Queen Tryphaena of the Acta Pauli et Theclae 27 ff. (for the real queen see PIR2 , A 900) as a fur­ ther hint of eastern origin. 17 See n. 10 above. The cos. ord. 193 was married to Sulpicia Agrippina, a member of an influential Lycian family: see now S. Jameson, Two Lycian fami­ lies, Anatolian Studies 16 (1966), 125—137. Two recently discovered inscriptions illustrate further the wide-ranging con­ nections of the family. AE 1967, 144 (nr. Mila, Numidia) adds to the information in CIL VIII 7066 = ILAlg II 652 (Cirta) in honour of Sosia Falconilla: Q. Pom­ peio Sosio Prisco limiori et testament. Q. Saenii Bassi — and the word Iuniori is perhaps a hint that the consul of 169 had the same nomenclature as his father. The second inscription is more enig­ matic: Pom - - -/Qui - - -/Falco - - -/Q. Pom ---/Prisci---/dotas--- (C. Veny, Corpus de las iscriptiones Balearicas hasta la domination arabe [Rome 1965] no. 61, Petra, Majorca). What the relationship of the family to the Cirtensian region of Numidia and to the Balearics may have been remains obscure. 18 See R. Syme, Tacitus (1958), 76 n. 1 , identifying Falco as the tribune Murena who intervened in the Publicius Certus debate of 97 (Pliny Ep. 9.13.19), followed by A. N. Sherwin-White, The Letters of Pliny (1966), 138 f., 497. 19 E. Birley, Senators in the emperors’ service, Proc. Brit. Academy 39 (1953), 197—214, pp. 201 ff. 20 p. 147 ’(Mitteilung Groags vom 12. Febr. 1927)’, a reference I owe to Eric Birley. The information seems to have been overlooked in most treatments of Falco. However, the inscription referred to by Groag has evidently remained un­ published. 21 The question requires fuller treat­ ment than would be possible within the limits of the present paper. 22 A. Stein, Die Legaten von Moesien (1940), 64 n. 3 refers to a revision of CIL III 12117 by Keil and Bauer (’ Scheden des Wiener Arch. Inst.’ ) according to which Falco was ’ pr. inter fisc... pere­ grinos’ (sic: presumably privatos is meant), hence not before Nerva, cf. Di­ gest 1.2.2.32. 23 R. Syme, Consulates in absence, JRS 48 (1958), 1 —9, p. 4; see also IGR III 739 I, lines 3—4 (Rhodiapolis) for the Lycian governorship; Modestus’ consul­ ship is given by AE 1954. 223 (Ostia). 24 Syme, JRS 48 (1958), 4; W. Eck, Se­ natoren von Vespasian bis Hadrian (1970), 15 n. 69. The next example on re­ cord seems to be the unknown leg. Au­ gustorum pr. pr. prov. Galat, item prov. Ciliciae (CIL III 254, Ancyra) probably from the 160 s, see Syme 4 n. 53 and W . Eck, Zur Verwaltungsgeschichte Ita­ liens unter Mark Aurel, ZPE 8 (1971) 71—92 (esp. p. 78 n. 27), who also discus­ ses L. Saevinius L. f. Quir. Proculus, leg. Aug. pro pr. prov. Galatiae item Ciliciae (AE 1969/1970. 601, Ancyra). For CIL XIII 6806 (Mainz) see Ep. Stud. 4 (1967), 74 f. 25 Thus Syme, JRS 48 (1958) 4, Taci­ tus (1958), 222 n. 5. 26 E. Groag, Zu neuen Inschriften. I. Zu einem neuen Fragment der Fasten von Ostia, JÖAI 29 (1935), Bbl. 117—204. 27 J. H. Oliver, Greek and Latin in­ scriptions, Hesperia 10 (1941), 237—261, pp. 239 ff. It is possible, of course, in spite of Oliver’ s drawing, that the cos. 149 was also labelled uuafuxoO] in line 7, in which case this term would have been employed for the two men who had been consul once only, while Senecio and Frontinus were described as [?ts & ] u*t[ o ]u and T p[is ö t t ä t o u ] respectively. See Schu­ macher, Priesterkollegien 312 n. 77 for a discussion of the differing views. I think it most likely that he was consul in ab­ sentia (there is no need to date Pliny, Ep. 9.15, addressed to Falco at Rome, to the year 108, see below n. 33): see Eck, Senatoren 15 n. 69, who very reasonably suggests that consularis may have been used on the Hierapolis inscription be­ cause Falco ’ in der Provinz den Konsu­ lat verwaltete und auch noch anschlies­ send in der Provinz blieb. Vielleicht war er bereits mit der Aussicht auf den Kon­ sulat nach Judäa gesandt worden’. 28 CIL X 6321, VIII 7066 = ILAlg II 652, AE 1935. 26. 29 E. Birley, Roman Britain and the Roman Army (1953), 141 n. 17 doubts the identification, but, as he now kindly po­ ints out to me, the cohort is attested in Syria Palaestina in 139 (CIL XVI 87) and probably belonged to the army of Ju­ daea before that. 30 Schumacher, Priesterkollegien 313 n. 82 notes that the priesthood is given in chronological order on the Hierapolis inscription. 31 Syme, Tacitus 66. 32 PIR2 , F 91. Veiento owed a small debt to Falco for his conduct as tribune in 97 (n. 18 above) and might have spon­ sored his co-option over a period, as Frontinus did for Pliny with the augurs (Ep. 4.8.3). 33 Book 9 cannot be dated easily, cf. Sherwin-White, The Letters of Pliny 39 ff. The traditional date for Pliny’ s Bithy- nian appointment, 111—113, would of course make it easier to date 9.15 later than 108. See now Schumacher, Priester­ kollegien 296 n. 36, criticising attempts to redate the appointment to 109—111. 34 Cf. Syme, Tacitus 652. 35 Stein, Moesien 65 n. 6 conveniently cites the evidence. 36 HA Hadrian 4.2: qua quidem tem­ pestate [sc. expeditionis Parthicae] ute­ batur Hadrianus amicitia Sosi (Senecio­ nis Aemili) Papi et Piatori Nepotis ex senatorio ordine. See H.-G. Pflaum, Un ami inconnu d'Hadrien: M. Aemilius Pa- pus, Klio 46 (1965), 331—337 for the emendation. Jones, JRS 60 (1970), 103 suggests that Senecio died ca. 113—115. 37 CIL III 12470 (Tropaeum Traiani). 38 R. Syme, The Lower Danube under Trajan, JRS 49 (1959), 26—33, esp. 31 ff. = Danubian Papers (1971), 122—133, esp. 130 ff., and note also p. 108 in the latter work. 39 P. Calpurnius Macer Caulius Rufus, his presumed predecessor, was there in 112 (CIL III 777, Troesmis); he might have been there for some time, however, whatever the dates of Pliny’ s appoint­ ment in Bithynia, which coincided with his own (Ep. 10. 42, 61. 5, 62, 77). He had been consul in 103 (AE 1954, 223, Ostia). 49 CIL III 7537 (Tomi). No enlighten­ ment is provided by the language of the Tarracina inscription, which describes him as Hadrian’ s legate of Britain and Trajan's legate of Moesia Inferior-unless he had been retired by Trajan and not given the British appointment until after Hadrian’ s accession. See further n. 47. 41 Syme, Tacitus 243 f., Emperors and Biography (1971), 114. 42 HA Hadrian. 6 .8 : cum rege Roxa- lanorum, qui de minutis stipendiis que­ rebatur, cognito negotio pacem conpo- suit. 43 See now Syme, Danubian Papers 102 f„ 108 f„ 167. 44 The date of birth is furnished by VI 1490 = D. 1106, set up to him after his death and revealing that he vixit annis LXII mens. V ili d. X IIII in Prae­ sente. II cos. (180): hence he was bom at latest in April 118. 45 Agricola 6.2, 9.6, 29.1. 46 HA Hadrian. 5.2. 47 Eck, Senatoren 186 n. 306 suggests that the Tomi inscription AE 1957. 336 indicates that he went to Britain direct from Lower Moesia ([leg.] Aug. pr. pr. Moes\_iae inf]erioris leg. Aug. [pro p]r. provinciae [B\ritanniae) and that the move was in 118. It is not known who his predecessor in Britain was. It might have been M. Atilius (Appius) Bradua (cos. ord. 108): Ep. Stud. 4 (1967), 6 8 f., 100. Note also the ignotus RIB 8 (Lon­ don), who could be a governor, as G. Al- földy pointed out, Bonner Jahrb. 166 (1966), 639; noted in Ep. Stud. 4 (1967), 82. The dedication may have been made, e. g., by [A. Larcius Prisjcus, [ob vi\c- toriam [Parthi\cam, but this is very un­ certain. 48 Roman Britain and the Roman Army 50. 49 Thus e. g. W. Weber, Untersuchun­ gen zur Geschichte des Kaisers Hadria­ nus (1907), 110. 50 E. Birley, The fate of the ninth le­ gion, in R. M. Butler (ed.), Soldier and Civilian in Romana Yorkshire (1971), 71 — 80; W. Eck, Zum Ende der legio IX Hi­ spana, Chiron 2 (1972), 459—462. 51 RIC II nos. 577 a, b; 561— 2, 572, with Mattingly’s discussion, pp. 315, 322. 52 C. E. Stevens, The Building of Ha­ drian's Wall (1966), 39, 52. 53 AE 1957.17 (Lydia, provenance un­ known), dated 124. 54 AE 1972.577 (Ephesus). 55 As Syme puts it, 'he went in for grafting, an operation that should not have proved arduous or uncongenial to a Roman senator of consular standing’ Pliny’ s less successful friends, Historia 9 [1960], 362—379, p. 379). 56 A. Birley, Marcus Aurelius (1966), 73. Q. POMPEIUS FALCO, NJEGOVO POREKLO IN KARIERA Povzetek Q. Pompeius Falco je dokaj tipičen primer kozmopolitskega pripadnika vodil­ nih družin v rimskem imperiju, kot so se pojavili konec 1 . in v začetku 2 . stoletja po Kr., zanimiv pa je posebej, ker je znan iz korespondence Plinija in Frontona in kot prejemnik respkripta cesarja Hadrijana. Cel niz dodatnih imen, ki so ohranje­ na na napisu iz mesta Tarracina (CIL X 6321 = ILS 1035, glej tudi tekst) — njegov vnuk, konzul leta 169, je imel že vsega skupaj 38 imen (CIL XIV 3609 = ILS 1104) — kaže na razvejane, v glavnem sorodstvene zveze, zlasti po ženini strani, z vrsto od­ ličnih družin. Cognomen Falco (doslej nepojasnjenega izvora) je skoraj enkraten, saj razen pri članih te družine nastopi le še v dveh primerih in še od teh je eden dvomljiv. Avtor meni, da izvira Falco iz Cilicije in se pri tem opira na napis, ki sta ga v njegovo čast v Ciliciji postavila Aulus Laberius Camerinus in njegov sin. Avtor navaja tudi mnenje nekaterih, da bi bil njegov prednik Pompejev klient zgodovinar Theophanes iz mesta Mytilene. V vsakem primeru gre za močne vezi z grškim sve­ tom. Domneva se, da tudi njegov tast Sosius Senecio izvira iz vzhoda. Vsekakor je Falco lep primerek nove multinacionalne aristokracije. Rojen je bil okoli leta 70, prvo mesto je bilo Xvir stlitibus indicandis, vojaško kariero je začel kot tribunus laticlavius X Fretensis, kot je navedeno v napisu iz Hierapolisa, ali, če gre v tem napisu za pomoto, X Gemine. Pozneje je bil pretorski legat X Fretensis. Kvestor je bil v Rimu, leta 97 je bil tribunus plebis-, v to leto da­ tira Plinijev odgovor na Falkonovo vprašanje, ali naj kot tribunus še dalje nastopa kot pravnik. Sledila je pretura. Potem ko je imel poveljstvo nad legio V Macedonica, je bil guverner v provinci Lycia-Pamphylia, verjetno leta 103, nato pa guverner v pretorski provinci Iudaea, kar je nenavadno. Razložiti bi se dalo s tem, da so za­ radi aneksije Arabije v letih 105—106 Rimljani rabili posebej izkušenega moža v sosednji provinci. Konzul je postal septembra 108. (dopolnjevanje fragmentiranega mesta na Fasti Ostienses se zdi kljub napisu iz Hierapolisa logično) in je verjetno še nekaj časa ostal v Judeji. V Judejo mu je pisal Plinij, naj njegovemu prijatelju Korneliju Minicijanu priskrbi mesto tribuna. Med prvim in tem pismom je Falco prejel še Plinijevo pismo v zvezi s poezijo, kar kaže na njegov interes za literaturo. Po povratku v Italijo je bil izvoljen med XVviri sacris faciundis in s tem prišel v zelo ekskluzivno odlično družbo, v kateri je bil tudi zgodovinar Cornelius Tacitus. V zadnjem pismu, ki ga je Falco prejel po povratku iz Judeje, se mu Plinij prito­ žuje nad razsodbami glede posestev. Nato je bil nekaj leta samo curator viae Trai- anae, ki so jo začeli graditi leta 109, in se omenja na novcih leta 112. Pričakovati je, da je v vojni s Parti leta 113 imel poveljniško mesto; vsekakor je bil nato (mor­ da že leta 113) guverner zelo povečane konzularne province Moesia inferior, kjer je izpričan za leto 116. V Spodnji Meziji je bil še leta 117 in se verjetno razgo- varjal s Hadrijanom, ko je ta po Trajanovi smrti pozimi 117/118 prispel na spodnjo Donavo. Verjetno je bil udeležen v pogajanjih s kraljem Roksolanov in pri Hadrija­ novi odločitvi, da opusti del province onstran Donave. Tega leta se mu je tudi rodil — najbrž edini — sin, poznejši konzul leta 149. Zdi se, da je Hadrijan poslal takoj leta 118 Falkona v Britanijo, ki jo je uprav­ ljal, kot kaže, do leta 122 (za datacijo je na razpolago le diploma CIL XVI 69) in cesarjev respkript v zvezi s samomorom nekega vojaka se verjetneje nanaša na nje­ govo službo v Britaniji kot v Meziji. V Britaniji so v tem času bili nemiri in zgo­ dovinarji menijo, da je že Falco (ne Nepos) z dobrimi izkušnjami iz Mezije nadziral gradnjo začetka Hadrijanovega zidu med mesti Tyne in Solway. Po vrnitvi iz Britanije je postal prokonzul v Aziji, kjer je izpričan leta 124. Spo­ min nanj je bil v Judeji še živ, saj sta se mu prišla v Efez kot dobrotniku poklonit dva odposlanca iz Samarije (Flavia Neapolis). Po vsej verjetnosti je nato odšel v pokoj. Poslednjič slišimo o njem v pismu, ki ga je leta 143 pisal Marcus Aurelius Frontonu, svojemu vzgojitelju. V pismu se spominja, kako je pred tremi leti z An- toninom Piem obiskal Falkonovo posestvo.