EPISTULA SEVERI ET CARACALLAE AD APHRODISIENSES
   
Letter of Septimius Severus and Caracalla concerning the victory over the Parthians
  
( AD 198 )
 
    
( J. Reynolds, Aphrodisias and Rome, London, 1982, n. 18 ).
 
 
αὐτοκράτορες Σεουῆρος καὶ Ἀντωνεῖνος [Ἀφρο]δ̣ε̣ι̣σ̣ι̣έ̣ω̣ν̣ τοῖ̣ς̣ ἄ̣[ρχουσι] κ̣αὶ τῇ β[ουλῇ καὶ] τῷ [δήμῳ χαίρειν vac. ] | ἡσθέντας ὑμᾶς ἐπὶ τῷ τοὺς θρασυνομένους [βαρ]βάρους νενεικῆσ[θα]ι̣ καὶ πᾶσαν [τὴν οἰκου]μ[ένην ἐν εἰρήνῃ γεγενῆσ]-|θαι σφόδρα ἔπρεπεν εὐφρανθῆναι τῆς πατρῴας κοινωνίας εἰς ἐμὲ Ἀντωνεῖνον ἡκούσης [?ὄντας καλοὺς κἀγαθοὺς ἄνδρας ?καὶ] | τῇ Ῥωμαίων ἀρχῇ μᾶλλον ἄλλων προσήκοντας διὰ τὴν προκαθημένην τῆς πόλεως ὑμ[ῶν θεόν τὴν ὑπάρχουσα]ν̣ | ὑμεῖν πολειτείαν καὶ τοὺς ἐπ’ αὐτῇ νόμους τοὺς μέχρι τῆς ἡμετέρας ἀρχῆς ἀκει[ν]ήτους μεμενηκότα[ς φυλάττομεν εὐτυχ]εῖ[?τε]
 
English translation ( Inscriptions of Aphrodisias Project ).
  
 
      The Emperors Severus and Antoninus to the [Magistrates) and the [Council and People] of the Aphrodisians, greetings.
      It was most appropriate that you, who rejoiced at the conquest of the insolent barbarians and [?the establishment of peace in] all [?the inhabited world], celebrated the coming of joint rule shared with my father to me, Antoninus, [.. ? .. for you are ? good and noble men and] more closely related than others to the empire of the Romans because of [the goddess] who presides over your city. Your existing polity and its laws which have survived unchanged up to our reign [we preserve. ?Farewell].
 

 
►  Bibliography
 
 
Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World, London, 1977, p. 416 ; Reynolds, Aphrodisias and Rome, London, 1982, n. 18 ; BE 1983, 379 ; Oliver, Greek Constitutions of Early Roman Emperors from Inscriptions and Papyri, Philadelphia, 1989, n. 219.
 
 
►  Source : Inscription on a column discovered at Aphrodisias, Turkey, recorded in 1967.