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6.: CORRECTOR ITALIÆ — ( P. 96 ) - Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 2 [1776]

Edition used:

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ed. J.B. Bury with an Introduction by W.E.H. Lecky (New York: Fred de Fau and Co., 1906), in 12 vols. Vol. 2.

Part of: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 12 vols.

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6.

CORRECTOR ITALIÆ — (

P. 96

)

As Gibbon notices, two statements are made in the Historia Augusta, as to the honourable provision which Aurelian made for Tetricus. In the Life of Tetricus (xxiv. 24, 5) we read: conrectorem totius Italiæ fecit, id est, Campaniæ, Samni, Lucaniæ, Brittiorum [Bruttii], Apuliæ, Calabriæ, Etruriæ atque Umbriæ, Piceni et Flaminiæ omnisque annonariæ regionis; but in the Life of Aurelian (xxvi. 39, 1) Tetricum triumphatum correctorem Lucaniæ fecit (so Aurel. Victor. &c.). Both statements cannot be true, and Mommsen (Ephem. epig. i. 140) has proved that the first is to be accepted and the second rejected.

We find the idea of a governor of Italy in the famous advice to Augustus which Dion Cassius (52, 21) puts in the mouth of Maecenas. It is suggested that Italy beyond a circuit of a hundred miles from Rome should be governed like the provinces. But as early as 214 we find C. Suetrius Sabinus, a consular, as electus ad corrigendum statum Italiæ (C.I.L. x. 5398) and at a later period Pomponius Bassus ἐπανορθωτὴς πάσης Ἰταλίας. See further Mommsen, loc. cit., and Staatsrecht, ii. 1086.

Thus we find that correctors of all Italy were occasionally appointed, during the third century. Therefore, Mommsen argues convincingly (and it is a good instance of the application of a principle of historical criticism), the notice that Tetricus was corrector Italiæ is the true one. For a later writer to whom correctors of Lucania were perfectly familiar would never have changed a corrector Lucaniæ into a corrector Italiæ.