Claudius Hieronymianus was a

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...

Legate Legate may refer to: * Legatus, a higher ranking general officer of the Roman army drawn from among the senatorial class :*Legatus Augusti pro praetore, a provincial governor in the Roman Imperial period *A member of a legation *A representative, ...

, commanding the 6th Legion in

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

during the military campaigns in

Caledonia Caledonia (; ) was the Latin name used by the Roman Empire to refer to the part of Great Britain () that lies north of the River Forth, which includes most of the land area of Scotland. Today, it is used as a romantic or poetic name for all ...

under

Septimius Severus Lucius Septimius Severus (; 11 April 145 – 4 February 211) was Roman emperor from 193 to 211. He was born in Leptis Magna (present-day Al-Khums, Libya) in the Roman province of Africa. As a young man he advanced through the customary suc ...

. He later served as the

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Cappadocia Cappadocia or Capadocia (; tr, Kapadokya), is a historical region in Central Anatolia, Turkey. It largely is in the provinces Nevşehir, Kayseri, Aksaray, Kırşehir, Sivas and Niğde. According to Herodotus, in the time of the Ionian Revo ...

Career

Claudius Hieronymianus is named in only a few scant references. The dedication stone at

Eboracum Eboracum () was a fort and later a city in the Roman province of Britannia. In its prime it was the largest town in northern Britain and a provincial capital. The site remained occupied after the decline of the Western Roman Empire and ultimat ...

(present-day

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

) naming Hieronymianus is dated to some point between AD 190 and AD 212, when he was acting as

of the 6th Legion then garrisoned at Eboracum. By AD 212 he was acting as

Personal life

The legate is mentioned in a passage of

Tertullian Tertullian (; la, Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus; 155 AD – 220 AD) was a prolific early Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa. He was the first Christian author to produce an extensive corpus of L ...

's ''Address to Scapula Tertullus'': during his governorship of

and supposedly angry at his wife's conversion to Christianity, he brought (in

's words) "much ill to the Christians" there. His own pagan religious views are expressed in a dedication stone from

(

) in which he is named as the benefactor of a freshly re-built

Roman temple Ancient Roman temples were among the most important buildings in Roman culture, and some of the richest buildings in Roman architecture, though only a few survive in any sort of complete state. Today they remain "the most obvious symbol of ...

dedicated to the god

Serapis Serapis or Sarapis is a Graeco-Egyptian deity. The cult of Serapis was promoted during the third century BC on the orders of Greek Pharaoh Ptolemy I Soter of the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt as a means to unify the Greeks and Egyptians in his r ...

Temple to Serapis at York

The dedication bearing his name was found in 1770 in Toft Green,

. A report in the 1775 edition of Archaeologia reports its discovery:

In August 1770, a stone was found in digging a cellar at York, at a place called the Friar's-Garden, one of the highest parts of the city. The workmen, in their progress, came to the foundation of an old building of Roman brick, the mortar or cement of which, was so hard as not to be penetrable by the Sharpest tools, the bricks breaking before the mortar... In digging the ground a little further, within the segment of the circle abovementioned, the men found a large gritstone, three feet long, two feet one inch broad, and eight inches thick.

The stone inscription reads:

To the holy god Serapis Claudius Hieronymianus, legate of the Sixth Legion Victrix, built this temple from the ground.

It has been argued that the temple was built in advance of the arrival of

in AD208.De la Bedoyere, G. 2002. ''Gods with Thunderbolts: Religion in Roman Britain.'' Tempus, Stroud. p174.

Severus Severus is the name of various historical and fictional figures, including: ;Emperors of the Roman empire *Septimius Severus (145–211), Roman emperor from 193 to 211 (rarely known as ''Severus I.'') *Severus Caracalla (188–217), Roman emperor f ...

is known to have been a prominent follower of

;Anon. 1954. "Was the devotion of Septimius Severus to Serapis the Cause of the Persecution of 202–3?", ''Journal of Theological Studies'' 5(1).pp73–76. Hieronymianus was thus demonstrating his close connection to the Emperor and his

Romanitas ''Romanitas'' is the collection of political and cultural concepts and practices by which the Romans defined themselves. It is a Latin word, first coined in the third century AD, meaning "Roman-ness" and has been used by modern historians as sho ...

References

External links

Dedication stone to Serapis by Claudius Hieronymianus
in the

Yorkshire Museum The Yorkshire Museum is a museum in York, England. It was opened in 1830, and has five permanent collections, covering biology, geology, archaeology, numismatics and astronomy. History The museum was founded by the Yorkshire Philosophical Soc ...

Video in which a Yorkshire Museum curator discusses the inscription
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hieronymianus, Claudius Roman legates Roman governors of Cappadocia Claudii Ancient Romans in Britain Collections of the Yorkshire Museum History of York