Lampas - Volume 56, Issue 4, 2023

Ever since its discovery in 1528, the Tabula Lugdunensis has regularly drawn the attention of scholars of Roman law. The focus of legal historical research on the tablet mostly concerns the content of both the request of the primores of Gaul and the senatus consultum which followed it. Central to this discussion are two passages from Tacitus’ Annales (11.23.1 and 11.25.1). On the basis of these texts, this article discusses the two most important legal aspects of the Tabula Lugdunensis. The first part will focus on the background and interpretation of the request of the Gauls. It will be argued that the primores petitioned the emperor for the right to wear the latus clavus, which would enable them to stand for office in Rome and enter the senate. In the second part of this article, the consideration of the request in Rome (by the emperor and his consilium and by the senate) will be discussed, resulting in the conclusion that – in contrast to what has often been suggested in modern literature – the Gauls (or rather the Aedui) were awarded the right to wear the latus clavus rather than being directly adlected into the senate.

This article takes a discourse pragmatic approach to the Latin text of the Tabula Lugdunensis. The speech by the emperor Claudius from 48 CE is known for its syntactical complexities. By explaining Claudius’s Latin, I aim to illustrate that a discourse pragmatic approach is more fruitful than a strictly syntactical analysis. First, I discuss the outline of the speech, addressing the way in which both the organisation at the text level and Claudius’s actio may have helped his live public in processing the speech. Then, I use the concept of discourse act to approach Claudius’s actio and segmentation of his speech at the sentence level. I make a distinction between central, orientational, supporting and digressive discourse acts to analyse the nature of the sequences in Claudius’ brief biographies of Numa, Tarquinius Priscus and Servius Tullius.

Claudius’ plea to admit the Gallic nobility to the Roman senate is known not only from the Annals of Tacitus, but also from the Tabula Claudiana, a monumental bronze inscription found in Lyon in the 16th century at a site where archaeologists situate the most important sanctuary of Roman Gaul. This paper focuses on the physical form and spatial context in which it was displayed. It tries to demonstrate that the inscription should not be viewed as a simple copy of an original text kept in the archives of the senate in Rome and sent from the centre of the empire to be slavishly published in Gaul, but rather as an initiative by the Gallic provincial elites. It will be argued that the extensive quotation of the emperor’s words, the use of costly material and the publication at a highly politically symbolic place all served the interests of the Gallic nobility.

The discovery of the Tabula in Lyon in 1528 took place in an environment where there was already a keen interest in the material remains of Roman antiquity. After its discovery, the inscription was put on permanent display at the city hall of Lyon, and various researchers made transcripts which, initially, remained in manuscript. In the mid-1530s, in the context of the struggle between France and Habsburg, the Tabula also acquired political significance. The first printed editions of the text appeared from the late 1530s onwards. Presumably around this time a connection with Claudius’ speech in Tacitus’ Annales 11 was first established, and the speaker correctly identified. Initially, however, this insight also remained in manuscript. It was only around 1570 that the connection became more widely known by the inclusion of the Tabula in scholarly commentaries on Tacitus. Despite this connection, during the 16th century the Tabula seems to have been especially significant for Lyon itself. Around the height of the French Wars of Religion, Claudius’ policy was associated with the sale of offices in contemporary France, with the apparent intention of blackening, by implication, the new monarch Henry IV.