ڤتيوس أگوريوس پريتكستاتوس

ڤتيوس أگوريوس پريتكستاتوس Vettius Agorius Praetextatus ‏(ح. 315–384) كان أرستقراطياً وثنياً ثرياً في الامبراطورية الرومانية بالقرن الرابع وكبير كهنة في معابد العديد من الآلهة. وقد عمل praetorian prefect في بلاط الامبراطور ڤالنتنيان الثاني في 384 حتى وفاته في نفس العام.


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سيرته

كان أعظم الناس إجلالاً بين الوثنيين في روما في أيامها الأخيرة هو فتيوس بريتكستاتوس، زعيم الأقلية الوثنية في مجلس الشيوخ. وكان الناس جميعاً يعترفون بفضائله-باستقامته، وعلمه، ووطنيته، وحياته العائلية اللطيفة. ومن الناس من يقول إنه يماثل كاتو وسنسناتوس Cincinnatus؛ ولكن الزمان يذكر أكثر منه صديقه سيماخوس (345-410)، الذي ترسم رسائله صورة رائعة ساحرة للأرستقراطية التي كانت تظن نفسها مخلدة وهي تحتضر. وحتى أسرته نفسها قد بدت أنها من المخلدين: فقد كان جده قنصلاً في عام 364، وكان هو نفسه حاكماً في عام 384، وقنصلاً في عام 391. وكان ابنته بريتورا، وحفيده قنصلاً في عام 485 بعد وفاة جده، وكان اثنان من أحفاده قنصلين في عام 522. وكان هو ذا ثروة طائلة؛ فقد كانت له ثلاثة قصور ريفية بالقرب من روما، وسبعة أخرى في لاتيوم، وخمسة على خليج نابلي، فضلاً عن قصور أخرى مثلها في أماكن أخرى من إيطاليا؛ وبفضل هذه القصور "كان في وسعه أن يسافر من أقصى شبه الجزيرة إلى أقصاها ثم يأوي إلى منزله في كل مكان يحل به(38)". ولا يذكر لنا التاريخ أن أحداً من الناس كان يحسده على ثروته، لأنه كان ينفق منها بسخاء وينميها بحياة الدرس، والخدمة العامة، والأخلاق الفاضلة، وأعمال البر والإنسانية، التي لا تعرف فيها شماله ما تفعل يمينه. وكان من أصدقائه الأوفياء مسيحيون ووثنيون، وبرابرة رومان. ولعله كان يضع وثنيته قبل وطنيته؛ فقد كان يظن أن الثقافة التي يمثلها ويستمع بها وثيقة الصلة بالدين القديم، وكان يخشى أن يؤدي سقوط أيهما إلى سقوط كليهما. ويعتقد أن المواطن بإخلاصه للشعائر القديمة يحس أنه حلقة في سلسلة مترابطة متصلة أعجب اتصال-تمتد من رميولوس إلى فلنتنيان، وأن هذا الإخلاص يبعث في نفسه حب المدينة وحب الحضارة التي نشأت بفضل الأجيال المتعاقبة خلال ألف عام.


السيرة السياسية والدينية

The tomb of Praetextatus and of his wife Aconia Fabia Paulina, conserved at the Musei Capitolini, records his cursus honorum.[1]

Praetextatus held several religious positions: pontifex of Vesta and Sol, augur, tauroboliatus, curialis of Hercules, neocorus, hierophant, priest of Liber and of the Eleusinian mysteries. He also held several political and administrative positions: he was quaestor, corrector Tusciae et Umbriae, Governor of Lusitania, Proconsul of Achaea, praefectus urbi in 384[2] and was praetorian prefect of Italy and Illyricum,[3] as well as consul designated for the year 385, an honour he did not achieve because he died in late 384.

In 370, several senators were tried for alleged magic practices by prefect Maximinus; Praetextatus led a senatorial legation to emperor Valentinian I, including Volusius Venustus and Minervius, charged with asking Valentinian to forgo torture for those senators involved in trials; the three of them were allowed in the presence of the Emperor, who denied having given such a disposition, but, thanks to the influence of the quaestor Eupraxius, the rights of the senators were restored.[4]

While holding the office of praefectus urbi, he gave back to the Bishop of Rome, Damasus, the basilica of Sicininus[5] and had the other bishop, Ursicinus, expelled from Rome,[6] thus restoring peace in the city,[7] even if he granted an amnesty to the followers of the defeated bishop.[8] His justice was celebrated; he had removed those private structures that were built against pagan temples (the so-called maeniana) and distributed within the whole city uniform and verified weights and measures.[9] He also restored the Porticus Deorum Consentium in the Roman Forum.[10]

After his death, the Emperor asked the Roman Senate for a copy of all his speeches,[11] while the Vestal Virgins proposed to the Emperor that they be allowed to erect statues in his honour.[12]

تأييد الديانة الرومانية التقليدية

Porticus Deorum Consentium in the Roman Forum; it was restored in 367 by Praetextatus, who reorganized also the worship of the Di Consentes, the protectors of the Roman Senate.

Praetextatus was one of the last political supporters of the res divina, the Roman religion, in Late Antiquity; he was particularly devoted to Vesta, as was his wife.[13] Praetextatus was friend with another major figure of the pagan aristocracy, Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, with whom he exchanged letters partially conserved.[14] According to Jerome, in reference to Bishop Damasus' luxurious lifestyle, he joked to him "Make me bishop of Rome and I will become a Christian".[15]

During his office as Proconsul of Achaea he appealed against an edict by Emperor Valentinian I (issued in 364) that forbade night sacrifices during the Mysteries: Praetextatus maintained that this edict made it impossible for pagans to keep their faith, and Valentinian nullified his own edict.[16]

In 367, during his tenure as praefectus urbi, he oversaw the restoration of the Porticus Deorum Consentium in the Roman Forum (41°53′33.2″N 12°29′1.27″E / 41.892556°N 12.4836861°E / 41.892556; 12.4836861 (Porticus_Deorum_Consentium)), the last great monument devoted to a pagan cult in Rome.[10] Even if this was a simple restoration of the damaged statues and a renovation of the worship, it was a symbolic choice, as the Di Consentes were the protectors of the Senate,[17] and therefore used to balance the power of the Emperor (it is significant that the inscription does not mention the Emperor).[18] It has been also proposed that the restoration of the cult of the Di Consentes appealed to Praetextatus as a propagation of "his ideology of the numen multiplex" cited in his funerary poem.[18]

A few years before his death, while his friend Symmachus was praefectus urbi, Praetextatus held an important ceremony, a pagan ascent to the Capitolium, an event that is recorded by Jerome: Praetextatus ascended, preceded by the highest magistrates, in a ceremony that was not a triumph, but which was really close to a pagan triumphal ceremony.[18][19]

In 384, during his tenure as praetorian prefect, he obtained from Valentinian II an edict about the persecution of the crimes of demolition of pagan temples and the attribution of the related investigations to the praefectus urbi of Rome (who, at that time, was his friend Symmachus).[20] Praetextatus' policy of restoration of the ancient Roman religion hit the Christian members of the imperial court (at Milan) and possibly it was for this reason that Symmachus, as friend and ally of Praetextatus, was falsely accused of torturing Christian priests: Symmachus responded that he was authorised by Praetextatus on the basis of the imperial edict and even Damasus supported him.[18][20]

Praetextatus and Paulina had a palace located at the corner of via Merulana and viale del Monte Oppio (41°53′39.83″N 12°29′59.09″E / 41.8943972°N 12.4997472°E / 41.8943972; 12.4997472 (Praetextatus' palace)) in Rome, on the place of the modern Palazzo Brancaccio. The garden around the palace, the so-called Horti Vettiani,[21] extended to the modern Roma Termini railway station. Archaeological investigations in this area brought out several discoveries related to Praetextatus' family. Among them there is the base of a statue dedicated to Coelia Concordia, one of the last Vestal Virgins, who had erected a statue in honour of Praetextatus after his death; the latter statue was criticised by Symmachus, who wrote a letter to Flavianus saying he opposed this erection because that was the first time that the Virgins had erected a statue to a man, even if pontifex.[13]

الهامش

  1. ^ CIL VI, 31929
  2. ^ He was in office at least since May 21 (Codex Theodosianus VI.5.2a) to at least September 9 (Codex Theodosianus I.54.5a).
  3. ^ The inscription talks about two prefectures, but modern historians believe this is a mistake in the inscription (Jones).
  4. ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, xxviii.1.24–25.
  5. ^ Collectio Avellana, 6. This is probably a reference to the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore; during the fights between supporters of Damasus and Ursicinius, the formers killed 137 supporters of the latter (Jerome, Chronicon, cited in Edward Gibbon, The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, chap. 25.
  6. ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, 27.9.9.
  7. ^ Collectio Avellana, 7; Sozomen, vi.23.
  8. ^ Collectio Avellana, 5.
  9. ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, 27.9.10.
  10. ^ أ ب The inscription on the monument(CIL VI, 102) reads: "[Deorum c]onsentium sacrosancta simulacra cum omni lo[ci totius adornatio]ne cultu in [formam antiquam restituto] / [V]ettius Praetextatus, v(ir) c(larissimus), pra[efectus u]rbi [reposuit] / curante Longeio [— v(ir) (clarissimus, c]onsul[ari]".
  11. ^ Symmachus, Relationes 24.
  12. ^ Symmachus, Relationes 12.2.
  13. ^ أ ب Lanciani.
  14. ^ Symmachus, Epistulae, I.44–55.
  15. ^ Jerome, Contra Johannem Hierosolymitanum, 8.
  16. ^ Zosimus, iv.3.2–3; Valentinian's law has been preserved in the Codex Theodosianus, (ix.16.7).
  17. ^ Martianus Capella, De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, 1,42.
  18. ^ أ ب ت ث Kahlos (1995).
  19. ^ Jerome, letter 23 2–3 ad Marcellam de exitu Leae.
  20. ^ أ ب Symmachus, Relationes 21,3–5.
  21. ^ Musei Capitolini Archived ديسمبر 4, 2009 at the Wayback Machine

Bibliography

Primary sources

Secondary sources

  • Cameron, Alan. The Last Pagans of Rome. Oxford University Press, 2011, ISBN 978-0-19-974727-6.
  • Jones, Arnold Hugh Martin, John Robert Martindale, John Morris, Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire: A.D. 260–395, volume 1 (PLRE I), Cambridge University Press, 1971, ISBN 0-521-07233-6.
  • Kahlos, Maijastina, "The Restoration Policy of Praetextatus", Arctos 29 (1995), pp. 39–47.
  • Kahlos, Maijastina, Vettius Agorius Praetextatus. A senatorial life in between, Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, Roma, 2002, ISBN 952-5323-05-6 (Acta Instituti Romani Finlandiae, 26).
  • Lanciani, Rodolfo, Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries, Houghton & Mifflin, Boston and New York, 1898, pp. 169–170. On-line at LacusCurtius

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