La parola scritta al servizio dell'imperatore e dell'impero: l'AB Epistulis e l'A Libellis nel II secolo D.C.

This study examines the office ab epistulis and the office a libellis, which were two offices of the Roman imperial administration that played a significant role in the communication between the Emperor and the Empire. While investigating these offices, particularly in the second century CE (from the age of Hadrian to the age of the Severan dynasty), I analyze epigraphical, literary, and juridical sources in order to illuminate the true functioning of each office. Moreover, I contextualize each one of them both within the framework of the imperial policy of the time, and within the framework of the imperial central administration. The major innovation provided by this PhD thesis consists in examining not only the people who worked in each office, but also the documents produced by them. Two chapters are devoted to this: the second chapter, which explores the people, and the third chapter, which analyzes the documents. In addition, both an introductory chapter and a concluding one frame these two chapters. The former focuses on the equestrian administration, for, in the second century CE, the directors of these offices were all equites. The latter looks at the ab epistulis and the a libellis as actual administrative structures. In the course of this dissertation, I elucidate the different working phases involved in the well functioning of these two offices, while pointing to the existence of forms of collaboration that occurred between them when specific administrative needs required it. Furthermore, my research demonstrates that the office ab epistulis in particular played an important role in the management of many imperial administrative documents.