Imperator

An inscription from the Louvre

Lucius AIMILIVS Lucii Filius INPEIRATOR DECREIVIT
VTEI QVEI HASTENSIVM SERVEI
IN TVRRI LASCVTANA HABITARENT
LEIBEREI ESSENT. AGRVM OPPIDVMQVe
QVOD EA TEMPESTATE POSEDISENT
ITEM POSSIDERE HABEREQVE
IOVSIT DVM POPVLVS SENATVSQVE
ROMANVS VELLET. ACTus INCASTREIS
Ante Diem XII Kalendis FEBRebruarii.

Lucius Aemilius, son of Lucius, Imperato, decreed
that the subjects which the Hastansians
have in the Tower of Lascuta
will be free. As to the land and fort
which they owned at that time,
they were to keep and have it,
he ordered, as long as the People and Senate
of Rome saw fit. Done in the camp
on 19 January.

Comment

This text, known as CIL1².614, is written on a small bronze plate that was found in modern Cadiz (Spain); todaqy, it is in The Louvre museum in Paris. It states that the citizens of a town called Tower of Lascuta, which used to be subjects (the text even calls them "slaves") of their neigbors in Hasta, were released from their duties.

It is interesting because the official, Lucius Aemilius Paullus (proconsul of Further Spain in 189 BCE), is called imperator: the first references to this title after it had been awarded to Hasdrubal the Fair and Publius Cornelius Scipio. The formula "People of Senate of Rome" is not the more common phrase "Senate and People of Rome".