The district of the Quadragesima Portuum Asiae et Bithyniae

This district is a merger of two districts that were named after the provinces of Asia and Bithynia in western Turkey. The district was much larger however. One inscription mentions a promagister (vice-director) of two publica, the portorium and the vigesima libertatis. The two positions are followed by a list of all provinces in Asia Minor (Asia, Pontus et Bithynia, Galatia, Cappadocia, Pisidia, Lycaonia, Pamphylia et Lycia, Armenia Minor, and presumably Cilicia). Originally the other provinces may or many not have formed a third district.

The administrative centre seems to have been Ephesus. When De Laet wrote, other offices were documented only in Miletus, Iasus, and Halicarnassus. Many new names could be added a few decades later. In August 1976 a spectacular discovery was made in the Church of Saint John in Ephesus: a long Greek inscription, listing measures concerned with the customs dues of Asia from 75 BC to 62 AD. It had been reused and is only partially preserved (154 lines have survived). The text is a translation in Greek of a Latin text. Some scholars have given it the rather curious name "Monumentum Ephesenum". A better name is Lex Portorii Asiae. The marble block is now in the Archaeological Museum in Ephesus. The Greek text with the restored Latin original and with an English translation was published in 2008 (Cottier-Corbier 2008, 16-86). New evidence has also emerged in Caunus, Myra in Lycia, and Andriake, the port of Myra.

The inscription in the museum in Ephesus. The entire surface is inscribed.
W. 1.44, h. 2.82, d. 0.305. Photo: Turkish Archaeological News.

Map of western Turkey with place names. From Cottier-Corbier 2008.