MAMA XI 311 (Perta)

Harman Çukuru is situated around 1.5km north of Obruk Han. Ballance notes that the inscription was ‘said to come from Ballık Ören, above Köpekler’ (İpekler). Papianos is described in line 4 as a beneficiarius; the fact that the bomos is dedicated to what appears to be a military deity (Zeus Stratios Megistos) may imply that he was still in post at the time this inscription was set up. Presumably Papianos was a beneficiarius of the governor of Galatia, based at a statio on the west-east highway between Perta and Salaberina (the ‘North Lykaonian road’: Ballance 1958). However, it is striking that the only other beneficiarius attested in Lykaonia (Schallmayer 1990: 532, no. 688; Laminger-Pascher 1992: 153, no. 219: Kümse, near Lystra) seems to have been attached not to the governor of Galatia, but to the legio XV Apollinaris, stationed far to the east at Satala in Kappadokia. For beneficiarii manning stationes in the Asiatic provinces, see Nelis-Clément 2000: 190-2; Brélaz 2005: 254-70; cf. also Mitchell 1993: I 122.

The name Παπιας and its patronymic form Παπιανός are widely distributed across inland Asia Minor (Robert 1963: 513-4; Zgusta 1964: 409-14 §1199; in Lykaonia, e.g. Laminger-Pascher 1992: 191, no. 307 [Alkaran]), and it is hard to say whether the dedicator was of local origin. The fact that Papianos’ family lived with him at Perta need not necessarily mean that they were natives of the region: cf. TAM II 3, 1165 (Schallmayer 1990: 526-7, no. 681), the tombstone of an Isaurian beneficiarius at Olympos in Lykia (βενεφικιαρίῳ ἔχοντι στατιώναν Ὀλύμπῳ), set up by his wife, a native of Syedra (Robert, Hellenica X, 172-7). Even when not of local origin, isolated beneficiarii evidently became well-embedded in their local communities: in IGR III 1443 (Schallmayer 1990: 535, no. 692: Kirşehir/Aquae Arauenae) we find the beneficiarius Phamainos acting as θεραπευθίς of a local cult of Asklepios and Hygeia (Nelis-Clément 2000: 191, 310).

The existence of small sanctuaries attached to stationes is well-attested; across the Roman empire, the overwhelming majority of votive monuments set up by beneficiarii are dedicated to the chief deity of the Roman army, Jupiter Optimus Maximus (Nelis-Clément 2000: 193-202; 32-3). Zeus Stratios Megistos, however, does not seem to be attested elsewhere. The cult-epithet Στράτιος had been applied to Zeus in several different parts of western and northern Anatolia since at least the fifth century BC, with major sanctuaries at Labraunda in Karia and Pontic Amaseia (Gebhard, RE IV A, cols. 256-62, s.v. Stratios; also in Lydia, TAM V 1, 681); it is conceivable that Papianos was a native of Karia or Pontos. For other cults of Zeus in this region, see the commentary to MAMA XI 313 (1956/142: Mernek).