EPISTULA GORDIANI AD EPAPHRAE
   
Letter of Gordian III to Aurelius Epaphras
  
( AD 238-244 )
 

    
( J. Reynolds, Aphrodisias and Rome, London, 1982, n. 22 ).
 

 
[αὐτ]ο̣[κράτωρ] Κ̣α̣ῖσαρ Μᾶρκος Ἀ̣[ντώνιος] | Γορδιανὸς [Εὐ]σεβὴς Εὐτυχὴς Σε̣[βαστὸς] | vac. Αὐρηλίῳ Ἐπαφρᾷ χαίρε[ιν vac. ] | εἴ τι περὶ τῶν τῆς πατρίδος σου̣ νόμ̣[ων] | τῇ τε ἱερωτάτῃ συνκλήτῳ βουλῇ ἔδ[οξε] | καὶ τοῖς ἐν θεοῖς τῶν αὐτοκρατόρων τοῦ[το] | κἀμοὶ πρέποι ἂν ἐπὶ τῶν αὐτῶν φυλάττει̣ν̣ | ὅρων̣ τ̣ῇ πατρίδι̣ τ̣ῇ σῇ εἰ τοίνυν προσιών | τις τῷ φίλῳ μου καὶ ἐπάρχῳ τῆς πατρίδος τῆς | ἐμῆς Φλαβίῳ Λατρωνιανῷ ὑπὲρ ὧν ἐνέγρα-|ψας διδάσκοις τὸ ἐξ ἀρχῆς ἔθος ἀναπέμψαι | προνοήσεται τὴν περὶ τοῦ Πολυδώρου | κρίσιν τῷ οἰκείῳ δικαστηρίῳ v. ἔρρωσο vac.

 
English translation ( Inscriptions of Aphrodisias Project ).
  

 
      Imperator Caesar M. A[ntonius] Gordianus, Pius, Felix, Au[gustus], to Aurelius Epaphras, greetings.
      Any decision about the laws of your native city that has been made by the reverend council of the Senate and those of the emperors who have been deified it would be proper for me too to preserve for your native city on the same terms. If, therefore, you/someone were to go to my friend Flavius Latronianus, who is prefect of my own native city, about the matters on which you wrote, and would explain to him the original tradition, he will arrange to remit the decision in the matter of Polydoros to the proper court. Farewell.
 

 
►  Bibliography
 
 
AE 1969, n. 599 ; Erim & Reynolds, JRS, 59, 1969, pp. 56-58 ; BE 1970, 536 ;
Oliver, GRBS, 11, 1970, pp. 137-138 ; Seston, XIII Congrès international des Sciences historiques, Moscow, 1970 ; BE 1971, 612 ; Wörrle, Chiron, 1, 1971, p. 333 ; Wieling, ZRG, 91, 1974, pp. 364-374 ; Pekary, ANRW, II, 7, 2, 1980, p. 628 ; Pleket & Stroud, Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum, XXXII, Amsterdam, 1982, n. 1097 ; BE 1983, 383 ; AE 1984, n. 876 ; Oliver, Greek Constitutions of Early Roman Emperors from Inscriptions and Papyri, Philadelphia, 1989, n. 282 ; Nörr in Eck, Lokale Autonomie und römische Ordnungsmacht in den kaiserzeitlichen Provinzen vom 1. Bis 3. Jahrhundert, München, 1999, p. 261.
 
 
►  Source : Inscription on a block discovered at Aphrodisias, Turkey, recorded in 1967.