Tabula Clesiana

The Tabula Clesiana is a bronze plaque from the Roman period, which was found in 1869 on the " Campi Neri " in the village of Cles in Val di Non in western Trentino in the digging of a trench in 60 cm depth. It is now preserved in the Museum of Buonconsiglio in Trento.

Nature and content

Description

The panel with the dimensions 50 × 38 × 0.61 cm is made ​​of high quality material, weighs 7.140 kilograms and is in good condition. The regularity of office management, the overall visual impression and the officially correct style of the inscription point to a highly specialized workshop. At the corners of the panel, the holes for the nails are to be seen of installation.

Content

It is provided with an inscription that has a decree of the Roman emperor Claudius in the year 46 AD the subject. In the opening credits of the actual adoption of the exact date (March 15 ), the two leading office consuls and the emperor are listed with their titles. The text is an imperial decree, in which he takes a stand on two brought to his attention concrete and independent issues. The only similarity is apparently the fact that it is cases that had to do with the Alps.

In the first case it comes to old dispute between two tribes who settled in the area of Lake Como and to the north of it in today's Bergell. They fought over lands that were in the light of new information that was the Emperor happened by Camurius Statutus in possession of the Emperor. The emperor appointed his administrator Julius Planta, to investigate the case on the spot exactly and to make a decision according to his will, which he then supposed to bring to his attention.

In the second case relates to the legal status of tribal members who lived in the Tridentine valleys. The resident of the Val di Non Anauni and potentially settled in adjacent valleys Sinduni and Tuliassi were even decades after the incorporation of the territory in which they lived, not yet fallen into the Roman Empire in the enjoyment of Roman citizenship. They had more than the legal status of adtributi who were affiliated with a municipium and could hope sometime in the future - as if after a trial period - for being awarded the full Roman citizenship. Only the Roman citizens who cives could complete certain transactions or certain administrative functions hold. As is apparent from the text, seems between the cives of municipium Trent and to have the affiliated tribes mentioned occurred so close family, social and economic mix that this expenditure as a Roman citizen and as a matter of course in the important posts of the Roman administration (eg in the Praetorian Guard ) were to be found that would only fully-fledged citizens should be accessible. The Emperor seems to be the legal situation to have occurred so confused that he decides to carry out the subsequent rehabilitation of a myriad of individual cases in such a way that it gives the flat rate listed tribes the Roman civil rights.

Importance

The discovery of this bronze plaque in his day taken care of quite a stir, so that even Theodor Mommsen has engaged in a treatise with the legal matter contained therein. The panel provides valuable insights into local conditions of that time, as quickly Romanesque assimilation peripheral mountainous ( Rhaetian ) is vonstattengegangen areas whose population has taken over the Roman way of life in all areas. It names the first time the tribes of Tuliassi and Sinduni whose correct localization is only hypothetically possible today.

Text

Translation

Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Pontifex Maximus ... features:

There are there for a long time old disputes that date back to the times of my uncle, the Emperor Tiberius, who had commissioned the Pinarius Apollinaris to settle the dispute between the Comern and as far as I remember, the Bergaliern, came because of the permanent absence of my uncle never to a decision and as little under the reign of Gaius ( Caligula ), because he had never requested from better insight to report that. When I then Camurius Statutus had informed that a majority of those reasons and forests at issue belong to my possession, I sent my friend and comrade Julius Plantation in place so that he and my authorized representative, the local from the are to be determined from neighboring areas, surveys instead hardworking and fathom the true facts, the same I have also authorized to determine and decide what seems the best - then he should personally reimburse me about this report.

As to the situation of the Anauni, Tulliassi and Sinduni, of which was reported to me, part was the Tridentinern, part but anyone yet allocated, so I must confess though, that the Roman citizenship of these tribes on rather uncertain origin; on the other hand it is said that these people own it for a long time and that they are so mixed with the Tridentinern that they could not separate without serious damage to this wonderful community of it. I permit therefore, that they may remain virtue of my grace and favor in the state, they have taken it upon him, and this rather so, as I am told that many of them are also in the Praetorians and some of them there even hold command posts, and that quite a few have exercised judicial functions among them in the Dekurien in Rome. This my favor I give them so much that everything they were doing as a Roman citizen and ran both going at each other, authenticated with the Tridentinern or with others at my command, and i allow them warden confirmed those titles they already occupied earlier, as if they were Roman citizens.