Özet:

During imperial times, Phrygia seems to have formed an administrative sub-district in terms of a ‘sub-province’ of the gubernatorial provincia Asia. A striking number of epigraphic records of freedman procurators refer to that Phrygia. Some of the office holders are explicitly attested as procurators “of Phrygia”. Moreover, one inscription mentions Phrygia not simply as a place name, but as a provincia. In all known cases, the Phrygian procurators were liberti Augusti, in contrast to the high-ranking equestrian procuratores Asiae residing in Ephesus. However, a freedman procurator Phrygiae reported directly to the governor of Asia, and was apparently not under the supervision of the equestrian procurator Asiae. Considering the spread of epigraphic attestations of procuratorial office holders, Phrygia did certainly not consti­tute a mere imperial estate within the province of Asia in terms of a regio or tractus. On the contrary, e.g. the imperial freedman Aurelius Philocyrius covered several estates that lay quite far apart. “Procurators of Phrygia” are attested in connection with several functions, e.g. resolv­ing legal disputes about the distribution of “requisitions” (ἀγγαρεία), dealing with boundaries between communities or guaranteeing the export of important local products, in particular the so-called “Phrygian” marble from Docimium. The seat of the procurators of Phrygia was most likely located in Synnada. Hence, as an area with freedman procurators of its own, Phrygia occupied a special position in relation to most of the other sub-provinces of Asia Minor: no independent procurators are known for example for the sub-provinces Armenia Minor, Bithynia or Pamphylia. Rather, equestrian procurators governed several sub-provinces jointly. Of course, because of the special social status of the Phrygian procurators as liberti, it’s not possible to define Phrygia’s administrative status in analogy to the two Syrian sub-provinces Judaea and Commagene. However, under the financial and judicial administration of a freedman pro­curator Phrygia seems to have actually constituted an imperial “procuratorial province”.

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