Le gouverneur de Numidie en sa capitale : le lieu et les acteurs du procès de l'évêque de Cirta en 320

Abstract

This paper is based on a new study of the sole manuscript of the Gesta apud Zenophilura consularem. These Gesta are the Acts (preserved in an appendix of the treatise ofOptatus) of the trial of Silvanus of Cirta who was accused of traditio and of theft by one of his deacons in 320. Comparison between this document and two types of ancient sources concerning penal trials (official records preserved in Egyptian papyri and the proceedings of the trials of the martyrs contained in the Acta martyrum) sheds light on the analysis of the Gesta apud Z. There are two related problems in that document: the location of the trial, and the identification of the exceptor mentionned anonymously in the records. P. Monceaux in 1912 had significantly corrected the reference to Sexto Thamugadiensi (found at the beginning of the proceedings, in the brief list of participants) in order to read the name of Timgad (Thamugadi in ci(vitate), as well as the date, sixth of Ides), as he thinks that the location of the trial is always indicated at the beginning of official acts. In the light of other judicial records, it is possible to determine however that the location is not indicated when the trial takes place in the town where the presiding magistrate has his official residence. There is no reason to give Timgad as the location of the trial of the bishop of Cirta, specially when all the participants are also inhabitants of this town. This paper proves that the trial took place in Cirta (the capital of Numidia reunified in 314), with the provincial governor acting as president: in that case, the location must not be mentioned. The correction proposed by Monceaux must therefore be abandonned. As the first editors thought (although they did not clearly pose the question of the location of the trial), Sextus is the exceptor of the tribunal. His place of birth, Timgad, is specified because he is the only participant in the trial who was not from Cirta. It can be proved that Sextus was the notarius in charge of recording the proceedings (for drawing up the Acts), as well as the reader of the numerous official documents in the course of the trial.