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BANDITS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE
53 CIL VIII 2728 + 18122 = ILS 5795 (Lambaesis): profectus sum et in- | ter vias latrones
sum passus. Nudus saucius e- | vasi cum meis. Since, at ll.15f., we find Clementem
procuratorem conveni, CIL and ILS must be mistaken in proposing the writer himself
as Clemens. For Varius Clemens cf. CIL III 5213f.; 5216 = ILS 1362; 1362a;
1362b, for Valerius Etruscus CIL VIII 2543; 17854; ILS 5351.
54 Cf. esp. Bellen, Sklavenflucht 95ff. Krause, Gefängnisse 26ff., each with further
bibliography.
55 App. Civ. 5.132.547. Suet. Aug. 32.1.
56 Suet. Aug. 32.2; Tib. 37.1. Cf. O. Hirschfeld, ‘Die Sicherheitspolizei in der römischen
Kaiserzeit’ (1891) in idem, Kleine Schriften, Berlin 1913, (576–612) 591. Bellen,
Sklavenflucht 95. Shaw, ‘Bandits’ 34.
57 CIL VIII 2494; 2495 (in the vicinity of the Oasis of El Kantara): burgum Commodianum
speculatorium . . . ad salutem commeantium.
58 CIL III 3385 = ILS 395: ripam omnem bu[rgis] | a solo extructis idem praes[i]- | dis per
loca opportuna ad | clandestinos latrunculo- | rum transitus oppositis. Further references in
Pekáry, Seditio 145. Cf. A. Alföldi, ‘Epigraphica IV’, ArchErt 2, 1941, (40–59) 45
(= AE 1944, 95). According to Alföldi the latrunculi against whom the burgi
Commodiani were erected were no ordinary bandits but rather barbarians raiding
into the frontier-area. Cf. also J. Fitz, ‘Maßnahmen zur militärischen Sicherheit von
Pannonia Inferior unter Commodus’, Klio 39, 1961, 199–214. P. Oliva, Pannonia
and the Onset of Crisis in the Roman Empire, Prague 1962, 309. F. Grosso, La lotta
politica al tempo di Commodo, Turin 1964, 487. Bellen, Sklavenflucht 102. G. Alföldy,
Noricum, London 1974, 204f. for CIL III 5670a = ILS 774, a fourth-century burgusinscription.
On burgi cf. Veget. 4.10. Isid. Orig. 9.4.28. O. Seeck, s.v. burgus,
RE III, 1899, 1066f. G. Behrens, ‘Burgi und burgarii’, Germania 15, 1931, 81–3.
L. Ohlenroth, ‘Römische Burgi an der Straße Augsburg – Kempten – Bregenz’,
BRGK 28, 1938, 122–56. M. Labrousse, ‘Les burgarii et le cursus publicus’, MEFRA
56, 1939, 151–67. E. Penninck, ‘L’origine hellénique de burgus’, Latomus 4, 1940–
45, 5–21.
59 Tert. Apol. 2.8: Latronibus vestigandis per universas provincias militaris statio sortitur.
Cf. A.V. Domaszewski, ‘Die Beneficiarierposten und die römischen Strassennetze’,
Westdeutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kunst 21, 1902, 158–211, and now J. Ott,
Osterburken I: Corpus der griechischen und lateinischen Beneficiarierinschriften des römischen
Reiches, Stuttgart 1990. Idem, Die Beneficiarier, Stuttgart 1995.
60 Cypr. Ad Donatum 6.117f. (CCL III A p. 6): Cerne tu itinera latronibus clausa, maria
obsessa praedonibus, cruente horrore castrorum bella ubique divisa.
61 By virtue of their mandata principis provincial governors were responsible, inter alia,
for the suppression of latrones, sacrilegii, mali homines, plagiarii and fures: Ulp. Dig.
1.18.13 pr. Cf. also Paul. Dig. 1.18.3. Marc. Dig. 48.13.4.2. P. Oxy. 12, 1408.
BGU 646. On this see too Bellen, Sklavenflucht 13f.; 105 and n. 756. Minor,
Brigand 40. Krause, Gefängnisse 28. Cf. further Juv. 8.121f.
62 CIL XIII 5010 = ILS 7007; CIL XIII 6211. On this see L. Flam-Zuckermann,
‘À propos d’une inscription de Suisse (CIL XIII, 5010): étude du phénomène
de brigandage dans l’empire romain’, Latomus 29, 1970, 451–73. G. Mangard,
‘L’inscription dédicatoire du théâtre du Bois l’Abbé à Eu (Seine-Maritime)’, Gallia
40, 1982, 35–51. An agens at | latrunculum operated in Italy in the third century,
CIL XI 6107 = ILS 509, see Th. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht, Bd. II 2, 2 3 , repr.
Graz 1969, 1075, nn. 1–2. Hirschfeld, ‘Sicherheitspolizei’ (n. 56), 592.
63 Marc. Dig. 48.3.6.1: sed et caput mandatorum exstat, quod divus Pius, cum provinciae
Asiae praeerat, sub edicto proposuit, ut irenarchae, cum adprehenderint latrones, interrogent
de sociis et receptatoribus etc. See Bellen, Sklavenflucht 103. Cf. also Lib. Or. 25.43.
Diogmitai: HA Marc. 21.7; Amm. 27.9.6. From the third century there were also
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