ARCHAEOLOGICAL MEETING OF THESSALY AND CENTRAL GREECE, 2003-2005
FROM PREHISTORY TO THE CONTEMPORARY PERIOD

Paper abstract

La taxe des affranchis et le financement de la vie publique dans les cites thessaliennes: nouvelle lecture de plusieurs documents du II° siecle apres J.-C.

Richard Bouchon

[Teacher Assistant (ATER) in ancient Greek Literature and Epigraphy, The University of Lyon 2]

This paper's object is to prove that 4 documents, from ancient Hypata in the time of the emperor Hadrian, have to be gathered to be understood in the proper way. They are not manumission records and private donations of money for public use, as published in the Inscriptiones Graecae, but actually form a part of the account of a specific magistrate whose task was to perceive the tax every freedmen had to pay for their manumission, as planned by the federal law. The money gathered that way was used mainly for the gymnasium, allowing the public expenses not to depend on the evergetes only. Other exemples in Thessalian cities show that the freedmen tax was sometimes used to organize the Imperial cult or any other public expense. Nonetheless, since the so-called Thessalian manumissions are, most of the time, only the registration of recently set free slaves, they seldom mentionned the way the tax was used.