Restoring Gaius: Nineteenth-Century Lithography and the Identity of a Roman Jurist

Abstract This study advances a historically grounded identification of the Roman jurist Gaius by correlating him with “Gaius, son of Philon, son of Gaius,” attested in line 32 of the honorific inscription (IK Prusias 27,2) from Prusias ad Hypium. The Laurens lithograph (1859), long overlooked in modern scholarship, provides the decisive evidence for recovering the papponymic sequence and securely situating the inscription within the Antonine period. His documented identity as phylarchos and a member of the Phyle Antonine place him within the elite civic structures of Bithynia. The jurist’s explicit reference to the Lex Bithynorum further supports a provincial context, indicating familiarity with the legal norms governing Bithynia‑Pontus. By restoring the complete epigraphic evidence and demonstrating the convergence of independent vectors, this study provides the first historically plausible provincial context for the jurist Gaius. The findings bridge the longstanding gap between provincial epigraphy and Roman legal scholarship, repositioning Gaius as a product of the civic, administrative, and legal structures of Prusias ad Hypium. Keywords: Gaius; Institutiones; Roman law; Bithynia; Prusias ad Hypium; phylarchos; Lex Bithynorum; Roman history; epigraphy, prosopography