ABSTRACT
The surviving sources on provincial priests in the Latin West preserve minimal information on any subsequent posts they might have filled. As a rule, evidence of this kind was recorded immediately following tenure of office, so can hardly preserve details of any later function. Against this limited range of usable material, it is hardly surprising if our knowledge of the subsequent careers of past provincial priests is thin and sketchy. In practice, therefore, these exceptions prove the rule that advancement to high society in Rome was an impossible goal for past provincial priests. This career pattern is frequent not only in Hispania Citerior, where most records have survived, but also in Tres Galliae, Lusitania, Proconsularis, Sardinia, Baetica, the Alpine provinces, Dacia and the twin provinces of Panonnia and Moesia; in the Danube region, it may be noted, the umbrella formula is strikingly absent.
