To My Family and Uğraş Uzun - Bilkent University

The question of who owned the marble quarries is answered by literary
evidence. According to Suetonius, Tiberius expropriated all the principal metalla
(mines and quarries) of the Roman Empire in AD 17 (Dodge, 1991: 32). By this
time, the Docimeum quarries may already have been the property of the emperor.
The imperial quarries were either directly administered by procurators or leased
out to contractors (Dodge, 1991: 32).
J.B. Ward-Perkins suggested in 1980 that the state-owned quarries meant
a new and more direct relationship between customers, quarries and supply
(1980: 326-27). In Hellenistic times, the customer could directly order from the
quarry (Ward-Perkins, 1980: 327). In Roman times, however, blocked-out marble
was stored in yards where they were kept for decades or even centuries before
being sold to a customer (Ward-Perkins, 1980: 327). A series of agencies in
export centres were probably necessary to control the distribution of, for
example, the Phrygian sarcophagi (Fig. 2) (Ward-Perkins, 1980: 329; Dodge,
1991: 36).
Epigraphic evidence from the Docimeum quarries is very informative
about the state ownership of the quarries. In his “Cavum Antrum Phrygiae”,
J.Fant examined and classified the inscriptions in the Docimeum quarries found
on blocks intended to be exported (Fant, 1989). The inscriptions occur only on
colored marble blocks, including Docimeum pavonazzetto. Fant classified the
inscriptions into three types. Type I and III include the contractor’s name, a serial
number, a consular date and other information, whereas Type II inscriptions are
about the internal control and accounting system, and are characterized by the
date provided on them (Fant, 1989: 11-12, 18-26; Dodge, 1991: 35).
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