SEG 59.262 Honours for Titus Aelius Faustus, Imperial freedman

Honours for Titus Aelius Faustus, Imperial freedman

SEG 59.262 Date: ca. 161-180 AD

[The Areopagos] Council and the Council of the 500 and the People (erected this statue of) Titus Aelius (5)Faustus of Besa, freedman (apeleutheron) of the Augusti, on account of his education (paideias), the [mighty one (kratiston)?]^[1]

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References:

SEG 59.262 (Translated text) (AIO)

IG II² 3936 (PHI)

IG II² 4130 (PHI)

Translation by: Chris de Lisle

Monument type: Base

Inscription type: Statue base (Areopagos, Council, and People)

a - Findspot: Asklepieion (EM 4908)
b - Findspot: Asklepieion (EM 9614)
c - Findspot: Asklepieion (EM 9574)
d - Findspot: Asklepieion (EM 4250)

Transliterations on Places on

[1] This base honours Titus Aelius Faustus, who was an Imperial freedman, i.e. a former slave of the Roman Emperor who had been granted freedom. Such freedmen often held important positions in the Imperial household and could become very powerful, but their social position was ambiguous, since they simultaneously endured the social stigma of former slavery and enjoyed the prestige of a semi-familial relationship to the emperor (on Imperial freedmen, see H. Mouritsen, The Freedman in the Roman World, 2011, 93-118). Faustus’ name indicates that he had been freed by Antoninus Pius (138-161 AD) and had received Athenian citizenship (being assigned to Besa, the deme of Hadrian and his successors). His funerary inscription (CIL VI 10701), once seen at Rome, but now lost, names his wife as Aelia Arete (i.e. a Greek freedwoman). Their son T. Aelius Faustus Makarios was procurator of the oil supply at Rome from 176-180 AD (CIL VI 34001). This is the only example of an honorific monument for an Imperial freedman at Athens. Six other freedmen are known from epitaphs and literary references (IG II² 7091, 7155, SEMA 2387; see S. Follet and D. Peppas-Delmousou, BCH 133, 2009, 411 for a full list). There are also several funerary monuments for the freedmen of private individuals (IG II² 10935, 12223, 12442, Agora XVII 972, SEG 17.123, SIA VI 8, 14, 24, 48, 51, 67, IG III App. 4). The eligibility of freedmen for Athenian priesthoods and magistracies is a key concern of a long letter from Emperor Marcus Aurelius (SEG 29.127).

Faustus is honoured for his education (paideia), like several others honoured with monuments in the area of the sanctuary of Asklepios on the south slope of the Acropolis in the Imperial period (on this sanctuary, see IG II³ 4, 665). The epithet kratistos (‘mighty one’) was generally reserved for Romans of equestrian and senatorial status.

Added: 15 May 2025
Updated: 15 May 2025
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ID: AIO_3388