L’iscrizione prefettizia di Perinthus - Heraclea di Tracia. Un omaggio a Massimino Daia Cesare durante la crisi della Terza Tetrarchia ?

A fragmentary inscription in Latin from the city of Perinthus-Heraclea (Marmara Ereğlisi, Turkey) is dedicated by a praetorian prefect to a Caesar, whose epithet is Iovius. The monument must be dated to the tetrarchic or post-tetrarchic age (ca. 293-324 AD). The text of the inscription is preserved in the only copy of the transcription made by the Italian merchant and traveller Ciriaco Pizzicolli in July 1444 (MS Vat. Lat. 5250, f. 3r). The comparison with the formulas and the style of the surviving epigraphy of the tetrarchic and post-tetrarchic age allows a reconstruction of the text. The name of Caesar and the name of the prefect do not appear in the transcription (erased?). The study of the elements preserved in the manuscript leads to the hypothesis that the inscription celebrated Maximinus Daia Caesar after September 307 AD (assassination of Severus Augustus) and before November 308 AD (Licinius as Augustus) by the will of the only praetorian prefect of Galerius Augustus.