LETTER OF HADRIAN
  
ON A GRANT OF REVENUES TO STRATONICE
   
( May 14, AD 127 )

 
 
( Johnson, Coleman-Norton & Bourne, Ancient Roman Statutes, Austin, 1961, p. 182, n. 242 ).
 
 
   Stratonice, named after his wife by Antiochus I Soter ( 280–261 B.C. ), who founded it, was one of the most important towns in the interior of Caria in Asia Minor. Hadrian took the town under his special supervision and renamed it Hadrianopolis.
   This Greek document, discovered in 1886 on the ancient site, demonstrates that in the provinces during the imperial period owners of ruinous buildings were compelled either to repair them or to sell them to those persons who would restore them.
 
 
LATIN TEXT  ( RICCOBONO )   ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Imperator Caesar diui Traiani Parthici filius, diui Neruae nepos, Traianus Hadrianus Augustus, pontifex maximus, tribuniciae potestatis XI, consul III, magistratibus et ordini et populo Stratonicensium Hadrianopolitarum salutem.
  
Emperor Caesar Trajan Hadrian Augustus, son of the deified Trajan Parthicus, grandson of the deified Nerva, pontifex maximus, holding the tribunician power for the eleventh time, consul for the third time, to the magistrates and the Senate and the people of the Stratoniceo-Hadrianopolitans, greetings.
     
Iusta petere mihi uidemini et necessaria nuper natae ciuitati. Vectigalia igitur quae ex territorio exiguntur dono uobis, et domum Tib. Claudii Socratis, quae est in urbe, uel instauret Socrates uel uendat cuipiam indigenarum, ne uetustate et incuria ruat.
  
You seem to me to ask that which is just and necessary for a recently created city. Therefore, the revenues from the territory I grant to you ; and the house of Tiberius Claudius Socrates, in the City, Socrates shall either repair or sell to anyone of the native inhabitants, lest it may collapse through age and neglect.
     
Haec per litteras mandaui et optimo proconsuli Stertinio Quarto et procuratori meo Pompeio Seuero.
  
These things I have commanded in writing both to the most excellent proconsul Stertinius Quartus and to my procurator Pompeius Severus.
     
Legatus uenit Cl. Candidus, cui uiaticum soluatur, nisi gratis munus sustineat.
  
The envoy is Claudius Candidus, to whom the traveling allowance shall be given, unless he undertakes the commission at his own expense.
     
Valete.
  
Farewell.
     
Kalendis Martiis, a Roma.
  
March I from Rome.
     
Cl. Candidus tradidi epistulam Lollio Rustico archonti pridie id. Mai. in concilio.
  
I, Claudius Candidus, have delivered this letter to Lollius Rusticus, the archon, on May 14, in the Assembly.