Imperial Ideology in the Tabula Siarensis bined text made available by the two tablets, from Heba and Siarum, to-
gether,alongwiththefragmentsfromRome.Innoveltyandsignificancethis
textfaroutweighs,forinstance,thatofthenewdecreeofthesenateofthe
sameyear,..,fromLarinum,^2 oreventheextensivebilingualedictofa
governoronvehiculatio(theexactionoftransportservices),issuedprobablya
coupleofyearsearlier,andinscribedinPisidia.^3 Inscalethenewcombined
textcanbecomparedwiththeorsolinesoftheRes Gestaeitself.There
are several points of contact between the two, towhich I will return. For
themomentletmesimplyemphasiseagain,inthecaseoftheRes Gestae,the
distinctionbetweentextandinscription.Asatext,theRes Gestaeisinevery
senseanAugustancomposition,writtenbyAugustushimself,perhapsina
firstdraftsoonafter..,andinitsfinalforminthelastyearofhislife.But
asaninscriptionittooisearlyTiberian,setupoutsidetheMausoleum,and
thencopiedforre-inscriptioninanumberofprovincialcentres.Whether
thiscopyingandre-inscriptionwerespontaneousorfollowedinstructions
fromtheSenateforthedistributionofthetextispreciselyaquestionraised
byanalogybythenewtextfromSiarum.
WhatIwishtosaythereforeconcernsnotBaetica,wheretheinscription
wascreated,butthenatureoftheRomanrespublicaasitwasintheearlyEm-
pire,andspecificallyintheearlyyearsofTiberius.BynatureImeaninthe
firstinstanceitsexplicitnature,ortheconceptionofthestateasexpressed
publiclybythosewhoplayedaroleinit.Inthisrespectthenewtextpresents
aviewoftheemperor,theimperialfamily,ofRome—itsinstitutionsandits
urbanmonuments—whichcanbothbecomparedandcontrastedwiththat
provided byanother set of texts from the sameyears, theTristiaandEpis-
tulae ex PontoofOvid.^4 Heretoo,butofcourseinaverydifferentway,the
structureofpublicandpoliticallifeatRomeismirroredinaprovincialen-
vironment.
Let me just illustrate one aspect of this parallel between thetabulaand
Ovid,twosourceswhichspeaktousfromoppositeendsoftheEmpire:that
istheemphasisonthedomus Augusta(theImperialfamily).Thetextofthe
decreeoftheSenatepassedinDecember..recordsthatstatuesofDivus
AugustusandtheDomusAugustahadalreadybeendedicatedbyGaiusNor-
banus Flaccus in the Circus Flaminius; as Professor González suggests, the
.AE, ; see B. Levick, ‘‘The Senatus Consultum from Larinum,’’JRS
():.
. S.Mitchell,‘‘RequisitionedTransportintheRomanEmpire:ANewInscriptionfrom
Pisidia,’’JRS():;AE,;SEGXXVI,.
. Forthehistoricalandchronologicalframework,R.Syme,History in Ovid().