Rome and the East
duly find coins with COL (IUL AUG FEL) HEL.^120 Under Philip and his son
the colonial coins also portray the standards of the two legions, the V Mace-
donica and VIII Augusta, which had taken part in the original settlement;
a few also incorporate the conventional scene of the founder ploughing.^121
Thecoins,likethetitleofthecolonia, should be read as conscious historical
reminiscence, or retrospection.
It is in keeping with the already established Latin, or Roman, character
of the area that we have a much better series of Latin inscriptions, from the
reign of Caracalla to the Tetrarchy, illustrating its colonial status than from
any other place. What is perhaps the earliest is probably a dedication to Cara-
callaex dec(reto) dec(urionum) splendissimae col(oniae) Iul(iae) Aug(ustae) Fel(icis)
Hel(iopolis)(IGLSVI ). Another is securely dated to.. (IGLSVI
); under Gordian adecurioof thecoloniaerected a ‘‘torch-bearing’’ statue
to mark his decurionate:statuamluciferamdecurionatussuihicconlo[ca]tam(IGLS
VI ); a dedication (IGLSVI ) and a milestone (IGLSVI )
date to the Tetrarchic period, as do newly published milestones from the
Heliopolis-Berytus road—Col[(onia)Iul(ia)Aug(usta)Fel(ix)]Hel(iopolis)—and
from the north-eastern limits of the city’s territory, near the sources of the
Orontes.^122 There the series of local Latin inscriptions of thecoloniaends,
along with the general decline of the epigraphic habit. There is also an un-
dated dedication (IGLSVI ) by Baebius Aurelianus Diusdec.col.Hel.But
one native of the third-centurycolonia, L. Trebonius Sossianus (for the name,
text following n. ), who entered the Roman army and rose to the rank
ofprimus pilus, was to leave a record of himself and his city both in Rome
and at Philippopolis in Arabia. On the Janiculum in Rome he put up under
Gordian an inscription which perfectly expressed both the local and the ‘‘Ro-
man’’ patriotism of Heliopolis:I.O.M.H., conservatori imperii d(omini) n(ostri)
Gordiani Pii Fel. Invicti Aug(usti), L. Trebonius Fab. Sossianus, colonia Heliopoli,
(centurio) frum(entarius) leg. III Fl(aviae) Gordianae p.p.^123 A few years later the
same man, now ap(rimus) p(ilus) domo col. Hel., honoured C. Iulius Priscus,
.BMC Syria, –.
. L. Okamura, ‘‘Western Legions in Baalbek, Lebanon: Colonial Coins (..–
) of the Philippi,’’Historia (): . I owe to Dr. C. J. Howgego the information
that the standards form part of a representation of what appears to be a group of cult statues,
two of which are holding the standards.
. Published by Ch. Ghadban, ‘‘Les frontières du territoire d’Héliopolis-Baalbek à
la lumière de nouveaux documents,’’ inLa géographie administrative et politique d’Alexandre à
Mahomet(), , on and (Khirbet Choukan near the Orontes).
.ILS Hajjar (n. ) I, no. , and II, pl. cxii.