SFER 18 mars 2006: P.Vedius Pollio à Éphèse : traces directes et indirectes de ses activités, (Bulletin de la Société française d’études épigraphiques sur Rome et le monde romain) Cahiers du Centre Gustave Glotz, 17, 2006. p. 327. (original) (raw)

Bulletin de la Société française d'études épigraphiques sur Rome et le monde romain. Année 2006

The conference focused on the relations of P. Vedius Pollio, knight, son of a freedman, businessman, with Ephesus. Three types of relations were identified: a little-known mission of a public nature in connection with the Artemision and other temples in Asia, carried out on behalf of Augustus; news about the Roman's commercial relations; and finally the existence of a possible onomastic posterity, the Vedii of Ephesus. Almost nothing can be said about some of the motives for Pollio's trip to Asia Minor, Ilion, Ephesus, Tralles, Miletus, other than that it must have been an official mission, since Pollio is entitled on coin portraits at Tralles, a rare privilege after Actium: nevertheless, some epigraphic texts and coins suggest that he had been concerned with the finances of the temples, and had taken measures that merited the title of benefactor. All other possible explanations, such as linking his mission to the creation of the imperial cult, are conjectural. [see now Kirbihler, P. Vedius Pollio, préfet d’Octavien en Asie ? Les problèmes d’une mission publique entre République et Empire », in L. CAVALIER, F. DELRIEUX et M.-Cl. FERRIES (éd.), Auguste et l’Asie Mineure, Bordeaux, 2017, p. 129-152 on academia] The Monumentum Ephesenum partially exempts Pollio, the only individual mentioned in the body of the customs law, from the fortieth tax. New archaeological findings provide information on the commercial connexions of P. Vellius Pollio, who sold wines from Cos and Chios: new publications of amphorae by G. Finkielsztejn make king Herod known among his clients or friends. Various epigraphic, archaeological and onomastic documents thus show the constitution of the fortune of a merchant whose activity straddled the East and the West, as well as the early investment of the Roman high classes in the eastern Mediterranean. The Vedii (and later [Claudii] Vedii Antonini), an important family of the second century, may ultimately have descended from the freedmen of P. Vedius Pollio: several Vedii are known from the large Ephesian subscription probably dating from the years 23-30. As a working hypothesis, I propose a reconstructed family tree of the family in the first century, extending the gens by four generations, now known with more or less certainty over ten generations: there would be continuity of gentility over three centuries, between the beginning of the reign of Augustus and the middle of the third century.