Evidence in Context: Public and Funerary Monuments of the Seviri Augustales at Ostia

This dissertation contextualizes the public and funerary monuments of the *Augustales, a group of municipal magistrates composed predominantly of freedmen, or ex-slaves, which was present in Roman towns during the first three centuries CE. Participation in the organization provided an otherwise-disenfranchised social group with a public role, and *Augustales came to bridge the gap between the decurions, or town councilors, and the population at large. Nearly absent from the literary record, *Augustales instead are known from over 2,500 inscriptions from the western Roman empire. The study aims to remedy a disjunction between two dominant scholarly approaches. While historians and epigraphers have marshalled masses of epigraphic evidence to draw widespread conclusions regarding the group's functions, structure and history, art historians have restricted their corpus to a limited number of idiosyncratic monuments, which are taken to represent not only the tastes of the *Augustales, but the visual predilections of freedmen in general. Both approaches isolate materials made by and for *Augustales from social, geographic and temporal contexts. Examining an array of monumental evidence in a single town allows an evaluation of current scholarly conclusions while nuancing and complicating our understanding of the function and identity of the group and its members. Ostia, the port of Rome, where nearly two hundred inscriptions recording *Augustales and their activities survive, provides the municipal backdrop. Complemented by evidence from the Italian peninsula, this corpus forms the basis of an examination of the organization. Four chapters examine the history of the Augustales and seviri Augustales (two temporally-dependent organizations), buildings associated with the order at Ostia and elsewhere, the public monuments commissioned by its members and the choices made by *Augustales in the funerary realm. Each section focuses on Ostian evidence, although adduces parallel material from other towns, such as Pompeii, Herculaneum, Misenum and Brescia. Catalogues detailing the public and private monuments of Ostia's *Augustales provide supplementary information. Each chapter explores the ways in which *Augustales visually emphasized their position as magistrates (rather than cultic overseers) and sought parity with the municipal elite, to whom they often had ties of patronage or kin.