governorships. Apogée in the Balkans The first Aelianus inscription cited above is incomplete, but it mentions an AELI(us)... V(iri) E(gregii) DUCI(s) as the commander of detachments drawn from the four legions of the Pannonian provinces at Poetovio, a highly strategic fortress commanding the approaches to Italy through the Julian Alps. Whether or not this man is to be identified with P. Aelius Aelianus, the subject of this paper, is uncertain. Prof. Nagy and Jones et al. did not make the connection. However, Fitz believed that they were one and the same person). Fitz also suggests that the inscription should be dated to the period 262-4 AD - i.e. he was put in post in 262 after the expulsion of the Roxolani who had ravaged Illyricum after they had defeated and killed the usurper Regalianus and removed when he was made Praefectus legionis at Aquincum in 264. Fitz's supposition that the Aelianus referred to was the P. Aelius Aelianus identified in the later inscriptions seems plausible, partly because: (i) it seems highly unlikely that there would have been two very senior officers of that name commissioning lapidary inscriptions in Pannonia within a very short period yet making no attempt to differentiate themselves from each other; and (ii) the Poetovio posting seems a highly probable career move for a man who was soon to be re-manifested as one of Gallienus's legionary prefects. As the Praefectus Legionis II Adiutricis referred to on the Aquincum sarcophagus of Martialis and his wife Fl. Agathe(a), Aelianus is likely to have been one of the earliest beneficiaries of Gallienus's policy of excluding senators from army commands in favour of professional equestrian officers who would, more often than not, have risen from the ranks. Nagy argues that, as a non-senator, Aelianus would not have been given this posting prior to the Persian captivity in 260 AD of Gallienus's father and senior Augustus, the Emperor Valerian. The measures that opened the legionary commands to equestrian officers were taken by Gallienus during his sole reign - possibly in 261 AD. Nor could Aelianus have been given the command after 267 in which year Valerius Marcellinus was in command of Legio II. Nagy is inclined to ascribe Aelianus's promotion to the earlier part of this five year ’window’. The Ulcisia altar describes the dedicator, P. Aelius Aelianus, as prefect of the Second legion, thus confirming that he was the same man