Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera

Pantera tombstone (left in the picture)

Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera (* around 22 BC in Sidon ; † around 40 near today's Bingerbrück ) was a Roman soldier who is sometimes associated with the soldier Panthera , who appears in legends about the origin of Jesus .

Life

Tomb of Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera in the Roman Hall (Bad Kreuznach)

All secured biographical information about Pantera comes from his tombstone , which was discovered in 1859 during the construction of a railway line in Bingerbrück. A relief , which takes up the largest part of the grave stele, shows the deceased in a representation slightly below life, standing and in uniform. However, the portrait has only survived to below the neck, so that Pantera’s facial features are unknown.

Below the relief there is an inscription containing the entire known life of Pantera:

Tib (erius) Iul (ius) Abdes Pantera

Sidonia ann (orum) LXII

grant (diorum) XXXX miles exs

coh (places) I sagittariorum

h (ic) s (itus) e (st)

Tiberius Iulius Abdes Pantera

from Sidon, 62 years old,

served as a soldier for 40 years

in the 1st cohort of archers

and is buried here.

Some authors derive the name ex signifer (ex-standard bearer) from the abbreviation exs , which would also fit the name Pantera, because the standard bearer of a Roman unit wore an animal fur on official occasions, in this case the fur of a big cat.

The text shows that Pantera came from the Phoenician city of Sidon and served as a soldier in the Cohors I Sagittariorum , the 1st cohort of archers . The origin and meaning of his Syrian name Abdes are unclear; Pantera is the Latin word for panthera in Greek . The Roman name Tiberius Iulius preceded his original name when he was granted Roman citizenship during the reign of Emperor Tiberius after his regular service as a soldier with the Honesta missio .

A note is known from Adolf Deißmann , who examined the Panthera legend and collected evidence for the historicity of this name, according to which the ancient historian Alfred von Domaszewski informed him that the Cohors I Sagittariorum were stationed in Syria up to the year 6 and then in Dalmatia should have been before it was moved to the Rhine in 9. With this, part of Pantera's life story could be rudimentarily understood. However, the information on the stationing of the unit has not yet been confirmed because the sources v. Domaszewskis are not mentioned in Deissmann's note. Archaeologically it is only certain that the cohort was garrisoned in Bingen at least around 43 to 70 . Today it is generally doubted that in the time before the deposition of the ethnarch Herodes Archelaus and the Roman provincialization of Judea in the year 6 Roman troops were permanently stationed in the Palestinian clientele. At most in crisis situations, auxiliary troops of the imperial governor of Syria were also deployed in Palestine (for example, when Publius Quinctilius Varus put down the uprising after the death of Herod the Great in 4 BC , where the city of Sepphoris a few kilometers north of Nazareth was destroyed).

literature

P. Haupt, S. Hornung: A member of the Holy Family? At the reception of a Roman soldier's tombstone from Bingerbrück. Mainz-Bingen district. In: Archäologische Informations 27/1, 2004, pp. 133–140; also in: Heimatjahrbuch für der Landkreis Mainz-Bingen 2006, pp. 67–74.

Web links

Roman hall and Roman villa | City of Bad Kreuznach

Remarks

^ Karl Rossel : MHG, 1859, p. 311. Historischer Verein für Nassau, October 7, 2008, accessed on June 23, 2015 (Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies Kassel 1834 eV).
↑ CIL 13, 7514 .
^ Yearbooks of the Society of Friends of Antiquity in the Rhineland . tape 1 . printed at the expense of the association, 1859, p. 80 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed June 28, 2015]).
↑ Cf. Werner Eck : Repression and Development: The Roman Army in Judaea. In: Ders .: Rome and Judaea. Five lectures on Roman rule in Palestine. Tübingen 2007, p. 106 f. EP Sanders : Jesus in Historical Context. In: Theology Today 50 (Oct. 1993), p. 433.

personal data
SURNAME	Pantera, Tiberius Iulius Abdes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	roman soldier
DATE OF BIRTH	around 22 BC Chr.
PLACE OF BIRTH	Sidon
DATE OF DEATH	at 40
Place of death	unsure: at Bingerbrück

[1] Karl Rossel : MHG, 1859, p. 311. Historischer Verein für Nassau, October 7, 2008, accessed on June 23, 2015 (Association for Hessian History and Regional Studies Kassel 1834 eV).

[2] CIL 13, 7514 .

[3] Yearbooks of the Society of Friends of Antiquity in the Rhineland . tape 1 . printed at the expense of the association, 1859, p. 80 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed June 28, 2015]).

[4] Cf. Werner Eck : Repression and Development: The Roman Army in Judaea. In: Ders .: Rome and Judaea. Five lectures on Roman rule in Palestine. Tübingen 2007, p. 106 f. EP Sanders : Jesus in Historical Context. In: Theology Today 50 (Oct. 1993), p. 433.