Sepulchral altar of an official in charge of imperial correspondence
Sepulchral altar of an official in charge of imperial correspondence
Acindynus – freedman (libertus) probably of the emperor Hadrian – holds an office defined as ab epistulis latinis, the director of the section of the imperial secretariat that took care of both the imperial correspondence of State and the issuing of official records written in Latin (there is a parallel section for documents in Greek destined for the eastern area of the Empire). The secretariat ab epistulis was established in the first century A.D. along with other specialised offices in accordance with an organisational plan which was given great impetus by the emperor Claudius. The epitaph was dedicated by his brother Clisthenes and mother Aelia Florentina. The officer’s proper name is a Greek adjective, akíndynos, which means “safe”.