apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

DATE OF THE MARTYRDOM. 657
23) it is related that in his later years he continued proconsuls
in ofifice
for as long a period as six years. These statements are borne out
by examples. A recently discovered inscription {Bull, de Corrcsp. Hellenique
1884, p. 469) speaks of C. Vibius Postumus as holding the
proconsulate for three years (to rpts dvOvn-dTw). This must have been
somewhere between a.d. 12—19. ^I- Silanus again was proconsul of
Africa a.d. 32 — 37, and P. Petronius proconsul of Asia a.d. 29 — 35.
Both these causes tended to create a block.
On the other hand death
would thin the ranks of the expectants ;
while others again were set
aside at the discretion or by the caprice of the emperor, or would be
passed over by their own desire. Then again ; though, as a rule, the
two senior men of consular rank would draw lots for the two
provinces, yet an exceptionally able man would occasionally
at some
great crisis be elected without regard to his seniority as a consular.
We meet with two of these irregularities combined in the person of
Galba, the future emperor. He was appointed to the proconsulate of
Africa out of due course {extra ordineni) and he held
;
the office for two
years (Sueton. Galb. 7).
As so much depended on the will of the emperor or the requirements
of the times, the intervals were different at different epochs.
Thus Commodus seems to have been prodigal in the creation of consiiles
suffecti.
Hence the block increased, and we find an interval of
nineteen years
— the longest on record— between the consulate (a.d. 198)
and the Asiatic proconsulate (a.d. 217) of Q. Anicius Faustus (see
Borghesi QLuvres v. p. 468). In the age of the two Antonines the
average interval was apparently about thirteen years, whereas both
before and after that age it was somewhat longer.
The following list relating to the two proconsulates in the second
century is drawn up with the aid of Waddington Pastes Asiatiqnes
passim (comp. Bull, de Corresp. Hellen. 1882, p. 285), Marquardt Rom.
Staatsverw. i.
p. 406, and Borghesi
11. cc. A recently discovered inscription
{Bull, de Corresp. Hellen. 1888, xii. p. 63) enables us to fix
the proconsulship of the first in the list, Vettius Proculus, to the year
A.D. 115. When Waddington wrote (i^ ^. p. 181) he could only say that
it was before a.d. 116. As the governors of the senatorial provinces,
by an order of Claudius still in force, were directed to start for their
provinces before the middle of April (Dion Cass. Ix. 1 7), the proconsuls
would not enter upon their office till May. Thus the proconsular and
calendar years nearly bisect each other. The years here given for the
proconsulates are the years in which they entered upon their office.
The second column distinguishes the consuls as ordinarn or suffecti.
IGN. I.
42