Jones, C.P.

Illinois Classical Studies

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14A Note on DiogmitaeC. p. JONESWhile being transported as a condemned criminal to Rome, Ignatius bishopof Antioch writes to the Christian community in the capital: "From Syriato Rome I am fighting with beasts, being bound on land and sea, by nightand day, to ten leopards, that is, a unit of soliders" {ano I\)p{a(; iiexpi^'PcbjiTiq Gripioiiaxco, 6ia yfic; Kai GaXdooTic;, vuKToq Kal fi|iepa<;,6e6e|i£vo(; 6eKa A,E07idp5ov<;, o egtvv oxpatKOTiKov xdy^a).^ In arecent note Barry Baldwin has argued that these "leopards" "will almostcertainly have been the so-called diogmitae, a tough crowd of vigilantes orenforcers, hardly deserving LSTs mild description of them as 'mountedpolicemen'." Baldwin proceeds to discuss some Greek and Latin attestationsof this word, and especially the Historia Augusta's Marcus 21. 7, armauit etdiogmitas. "This account . . . may be authentic, given the undoubtedexistence of diogmitae at that time. Yet one has to wonder what the chancesare of the Historia Augusta independently coming up with the only extantLatin use of the term outside Ammianus" [27. 9. 6]. Baldwin suggests that"we have here yet another small link in the chain of details that betrays thefraudulent nature of the Historia Augusta."'^The classic discussion of the diogmitae is by W. H. Waddington,commenting on an inscription copied by Philippe Le Bas on the territory ofAezanoi in Phrygia; some refinements were added by Wilhelm Dittenbergerin his edition of the same text. These scholars established that thediogmitae were a form of police, light-armed and operating on foot, attachedto municipal officers such as the eirenarches and (tic paraphylax? In 1928Louis Robert discussed some inscriptions from the borderland of Pisidia andPamphylia which showed diogmitae acting in pairs or accompanying^ Ign., Ep. Rom. 5. 1 (the best edition is by P. T. Camelot, Sources Chretiennes 10 [Paris1951]).2 Baldwin. ICS 10 (1985). 281-83.^ Le Bas-Waddington HI 992. whence J. Franz. Corpus Inscriplionum Graecarum 3831 a 8;Dittenberger. Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae 511, derives from L-W. G. Lafaye.Inscriptiones Graecae ad Res Romanas pertinentes IV 580 from Dittenberger. LSJ take theirdefinition of "mounted poHceman" from Franz and ignore Waddington and Dittenberger: in theirSupplement they refer to Dittenberger without changing their definition.180 Illinois Classical Studies, XII. 1eirenarchae in threes; some ten years later he was able to add a relief fromthe Smyrna Museum, several times discussed and reproduced thereafter,which shows a mounted paraphylax accompanied by three lightly armedsubordinates whom Robert recognized as diogmitae^ As their nameimplies, these were "pursuers" usually employed to apprehend fugitives. Itis inconceivable that even ten such local constables could constitute the"leopards" who travelled with Ignatius by land and sea from Syrian Antiochto Rome; these must be Roman legionaries, detached in the usual way toaccompany a group of important prisoners.^The inscription from the Aezanitis records that a benefactor of the city"provided at his own expense a diogmites to fight under the lord Caesar inthe proconsulship of Quintilius Maximus" (Tiapaaxovxa tw K\)pi(pKaiaapi (5x>\i.yia%ov 6icoY}i.EixTiv nap* £a\)tou Kaxot dvQuTiaxovK\)ivTi>.iov Md^i^ov). The context in which the Historia Augusta saysthat Marcus Aurelius "armed the diogmitae" concerns the emperor'spreparations and departure for the German War in 169.^ Waddington,followed by Dittenberger, argued that the proconsul Quintilius Maximuswas the consul of 151, who should have been proconsul in the later 160s,and that the inscription thus confirmed the testimony of the HistoriaAugusta. A milestone from Dascyleion now dates Maximus' proconsulateto 169/70, and puts Waddington's hypothesis beyond all doubt.^ In short,the diogmitae were neither "mounted policemen" nor "a tough crowd ofvigilantes or enforcers," but light-armed local constables. That is why theHistoria Augusta singles out among Marcus Aurelius' preparations for theGerman War the fact that "he also (or even) armed the diogmitae"', itstestimony is confirmed by the inscription from the territory of Aezanoi.University of Toronto* Inscriptions: L. Robert, Bulletin de Correspondance Hellenique 52 (1928), 407-09 {OperaMinora Selecta [Amsterdam 1969], II, pp. 878-80), discussing the inscriptions nowSupplementum Epigraphicum Graecum VI 688, 690, 709. Relief: Robert, Etudes Anatoliennes(Paris 1937), pp. 102-03 with Plate n 2, adding (p. 103, n. 1) a new diogmites fromMonumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua III 305; on this relief see most recently M. Speidel,Epigraphica AnatoUca 5 (1985), pp. 159-60. Robert's second publication is not cited inBaldwin's article (above, note 2).^ On this function of the legionaries, T. Mommsen, Romisches Strafrecht (Leipzig 1899), pp.315-18. That Ignatius was not the only prisoner follows from Polycarp, Ep. 1. 1,9. 1, 13. 2(Camelot [above, note 1], p. 9).^HA.M.Aur.20.6-2\. 10.^ D. French, Zeitschrift fur Papyrologie und Epigraphik 21 (1976), 77-78; cf. G. Alfoldy,Konsulat und Senatorenstand unter den Antoninern, Antiquitas, Reihe 1, 27 (Bonn 1977), p.381; Bengt E. Thomasson, Laterculi Praesidum 1 (Goteborg 1984), p. 230, no. 151; C. P.Jones, Culture and Society in Lucian (Cambridge, Mass. 1986), p. 165 arguing against anaberrant view of D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor (Princeton 1950), p. 1532, n. 6.

A Note on Diogmitae

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