I Tetrarchi, le statue divine e i tesori dei templi

This article is based on the analysis of some inscriptions which date to the Tetrarchic age (approximately between 285 and 312) and have received little attention in scholarship. They are dedications of statues of deities, set up in different sanctuaries by order of the emperors themselves (Diocletian and Maximian, Galerius, Maximinus Daia, Licinius), through the agency of their provincial representatives, the governors. Some of these (it is the case of two statues from Didyma) seem to be acts of disinterested pietas and to fit perfectly into the inveterate tradition of the celebration of gods, coherently with the self-representation of tetrarchs as it is shown in panegyrics, inscriptions and coins. Others instead (a couple of dedications from ancient Ilion) explicitly - and quite surprisingly - refer to the fact that the statues were made of (a part of) the precious metal which the emperors ordered to be taken from the same temples, according to a practice of ‘exchange’ which is not unparalleled in previous times. A similar procedure (statues made from metal belonging to temple treasures) seem to have been followed by Licinius in two different temples of Dionysopolis in Scythia. The request of crude metal is then examined in the framework of the fiscal and monetary policy of the emperors of the first, second and third Tetrarchy, as it is illustrated by several papyri. Finally, the possibility that seizure of temples’ properties was not uncommon in the Tetrarchic period invites us to reconsider the originality and the meaning of Constantine’s politics towards pagan sanctuaries