of the province of Epirus sometime in the period 275-80 AD who had previously taken part in the census of the frontier province of Noricum. It is unlikely that the Aelianus who was a legionary prefect before 266 could have held these offices at a later date as the posts were lower in the equestrian career structure. However, the work of Brunt has thrown doubt on the theory that the Roman principate ever had a highly structured equestrian administrative service such as that envisaged by Pflaum and others and, in the light of this, it is possible to propose that Aelianus might have gone on from the command of a legion to a ducenarian procuratorship in the later 260s. Less controversially, Nagy considered that the 'Aelius Aelianus' who was identified as V(ir) P(erfectissimus), praeses provinciae Mauritaniae Caesarensis (i.e. 'Best of Men, Governor of the province of Mauritania Caesarensis) in around 276 could well have been the same man as the praefectus legionis II in Aquincum of a dozen years earlier. He had by then been elevated to the perfectissimate, the second rank of the equestrian order. Nagy believed that this appointment would have been a promotion quite compatible with theories then current as to the equestrian career structure. Furthermore, it would also fit in with the known tendency to appoint military men to governing posts in Africa from the later years of the Emperor Probus onwards to deal with increased restlessness on the part of the Berber tribes of the Mauretanian interior. As Nagy observes, the Aelianus whose early experience of independent command had been against Sarmatian steppe nomads in Illyricum would have been well qualified to deal with Berber razzias in Rome's west African provinces. Rank and social status As a Praefectus legionis vice legati Aelianus had been egregius - i.e. a member of the third grade of the equestrian order - but, as Praeses Mauritaniae, he was a perfectissimus. His promotion in rank had brought with it a promotion in his social status. In addition it was not considered necessary to use the formula agens vice praesidis to emphasise that, as an equestrian, his rank as praeses was only 'acting'. This seems to have been a fairly recent development in the status of equestrian governors who were replacing senators in pro-praetorian provinces. For instance, not many years before in the 260s, as governor of the province of Pannonia