The Sacred Identity of Ephesos (Routledge Revivals)

Foundation Myths of a Roman City

Guy Maclean Rogers

• Editore: Routledge
• Anno: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781317808367
• Edizione: 1
• Argomento: Histoire
• Categoria: Histoire antique

The Sacred Identity of Ephesos offers a full-length interpretation of one of the largest known bequests in the Classical world, made to the city of Ephesos in AD 104 by a wealthy Roman equestrian, and challenges some of the basic assumptions made about the significance of the Greek cultural renaissance known as the 'Second Sophistic'.

Professor Rogers shows how the civic rituals created by the foundation symbolised a contemporary social hierarchy, and how the ruling class used foundation myths - the birth of the goddess Artemis in a grove above the city – as a tangible source of power, to be wielded over new citizens and new gods. Utilising an innovative methodology for analysing large inscriptions, Professor Rogers argues that the Ephesians used their past to define their present during the Roman Empire, shedding new light on how second-century Greeks maintained their identities in relation to Romans, Christians, and Jews.

1

THE DISPLAY OF WRITING

At the ancient site of Ephesos, amidst the well-tended tombstones of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, a pile of grey marble slabs lies abandoned in a tangle of russet-colored weeds. Although trampled upon by barefooted pilgrims of three religions, the fragmentary lines inscribed on the slabs still speak to us faintly of a bequest made to the boule and demos of Ephesos in AD 104 by a wealthy Roman equestrian, C. Vibius Salutaris.

The stones tell us first about a yearly scheme of lotteries and distributions in the city, cash donations doled out to crowds of beneficiaries within the temple of Artemis, one of the seven wonders of the Hellenistic world. We see the beneficiaries mix in the temple with other Ephesians, their Ionian brothers and Greeks from around the Mediterranean world, who have come to celebrate the mysteries of Artemis, the annual re-enactment of the birth of the goddess Artemis at Ephesos. Citizens of Ephesos, dressed as Kuretes, priests originally attached to the Artemision, protect Leto from Hera, who jealously spies upon Leto giving birth to Artemis in the sacred grove of Ortygia. Some of Salutaris’ lot-winners pray, others buy incense and animals for bloody sacrifices. The majority, however, clutch their bronze coins and watch the birthday party of Artemis unfold before their eyes.

The mute stones then bear testimony to a long procession of gold and silver statues carried through the streets of Ephesos by a train of young men. Artemis, the Roman emperor, Lysimachos, and Androklos march through the bustling marble streets of the city, beneath the windows of the wealthy along the street known as the Embolos. They pass in front of the shops of the merchants on their way into the Great Theatre, along a circular route, repeated once every few weeks, which begins and ends at the temple of Artemis.

From these broken lines, this bequest, and these slices of public culture, this book reconstructs part of the conceptual world of Ephesos¹ during the early Roman empire. Such a reconstruction, based upon a series of fragmentary inscriptions, may raise the eyebrows of more than one ancient historian accustomed to building worlds upon literary texts. This response would be premature, if not surprising. For although the Salutaris foundation comprises one of the longest, most complex, and important foundation-deeds to have survived from the Roman world,² no historian has yet tried to study the content, purpose, and significance of the Salutaris foundation framed against the background of the city life of Ephesos at the beginning of the second century AD. Recent topographical studies and publication of the epigraphical corpus of the city now help provide this background for the first time.³ When set within the context of the city life of Ephesos, as I shall try to show, the Salutaris foundation, essentially one monumental display of writing,⁴ reveals that the past of Ephesos, most importantly, the story of the birth of Artemis at Ortygia, but also the Ionian foundation of Androklos, was very much alive in AD 104, and provided the members of the boule and the demos with a tangible source of power, to be wielded over the youth of the city, over new founders, and, at last, over new gods. At Ephesos in AD 104, the boule and demos did not merely pretend that the past was the present. The past, in certain ways, was the present.

EPHESOS IN ASIA FROM 133 BC UNTIL AD 104

The following narrative sketch of the history of the city within the Roman province is intended to provide only an immediate political background for beginning to understand how, and perhaps even why, the Hellenistic, Ionian, and sacred past of the city became the present at Ephesos in AD 104, at precisely the time when the imperial government at Rome had provided the necessary generations of peace and stability within the province of Asia which made the Ephesians’ assertion of the Greek identity of their city in AD 104 possible.

The province of Asia was born the child of an heirless monarch. After the death of the last king of Pergamon, Attalos III, perhaps in September of 134 BC, the inhabitants of his kingdom discovered that the king, who lacked a legitimate heir, had named the Roman people as heir to all of his possessions in his last will.⁵ These possessions included not only his private fortune, but all royal lands and subject cities. Not included were lands belonging to temples of gods and goddesses within the boundaries of the kingdom, and the city of Pergamon itself.

This royal will was brought to Rome by the spring of 133 BC, but the Senate did little more than appoint a commission of five senators to lay the foundation for the formation of the province during the rest of 133, and, quite possibly, most of 132 as well. During this time, the will became a source of political, and even armed contention both in Rome and Asia Minor.

At Rome, the tribune Tiberius Gracchus brought a bill before the assembly of the people which proposed to use the treasure of the Pergamene kings for the benefit of those to whom he had allotted land. He also planned to submit the question of the ultimate status of the cities included in the will before the assembly of the people. His violent death prevented these measures from being implemented, and it devolved upon the Senate to settle all questions relating to the will and the formation of the new Roman province.

Before the province could be formed, however, a certain Aristonikos, the illegitimate son of Eumenes, led a revolt against the terms of the bequest. During the war against Aristonikos, the Ephesians defeated the fleet of the pretender in a sea battle off Kyme,⁶ but Manius Aquilius only crushed the last vestiges of the revolt before the end of 129/8 BC. Aquilius then set about organizing the new Roman province.

By 126 BC, Aquilius had divided up the land of the new province, which comprised a territory largely restricted to the western districts of the former kingdom,⁷ into a series of conventus or assize districts, each with a city center where the governor would hold court days and listen to petitions.⁸ Ephesos, while technically a free city,⁹ as it had been under Pergamene rule probably since 167 BC, was one of the original assize centers of the province designated by Aquilius, and remained a conventus center of the province from the late Republic (c. 56–50 BC) well into the third century AD. Along with the occasional presence of the governor (perhaps more frequently at Ephesos than elsewhere), assize status over these centuries brought with it various legal privileges in the form of exemptions and, perhaps more importantly, inherent economic benefits derived from the arrival of large numbers of litigants with their advisors, friends, and followers into the designated cities.¹⁰

At the end of the second century BC, the report of a dispute over revenues claimed by the tax-collectors, known as the publicani, and officials of the temple of Artemis at Ephesos, perhaps sheds some light on the evolving relationship between Ephesos and the imperial government twenty years or so after the formation of the province. In 104 BC the Ephesians sent the famous geographer Artemidoros to the Senate in Rome to protest about the publicani forcibly converting revenues from lakes designated as sacred (at the mouth of the Kaystros River which flowed into the harbor of the city) for their own use.¹¹ The success of the embassy in this instance – the publicani were ordered to keep their hands off the sacred lakes of Artemis – may be attributed either to the persuasive speech of Artemidoros, or perhaps to the influence of sympathetic listeners at Rome, including the powerful Q. Mucius Scaevola, who knew Asia well. In either case, the Ephesians’ success demonstrates the critical importance of personal ability and contacts for the Greek cities of Asia within a Roman administrative system which succeeded in the long run largely because it attempted to do so little – maintain law and order and collect taxes – and depended so much upon local initiative.

The episode also neatly symbolizes the attempt of agents of the publicani throughout the province of Asia to tax all the land to which they might conceivably assert any claim whatsoever; particularly during the last years of the Roman Republic, the publicani tried to impose taxes upon the lands of the free cities and the estates of temples. Only the more settled political conditions of the principate, when political rivalries at Rome no longer were fueled by fortunes acquired during oppressive governorships abroad, and the severe scrutiny of the emperor often acted as a kind of pre-emptive guarantee of fair dealing on the part of the tax-collectors, would bring relief from such attempts by the publicani.

Indeed, the record of the performance of the Republican governors of the province of Asia was decidedly mixed. Quintus Mucius Scaevola, who probably governed the province of Asia in 94/3 BC, perhaps made the greatest impact upon the office itself, and certainly created a very positive impression among some provincials. When Scaevola entered upon his office, he issued an edict, or statement of principles, to be followed while he was in office, which served as a blueprint for future governors beginning their offices.¹²

From the point of view of the Greeks of Asia, the most important clause of the edict related to their freedom. According to Cicero, Scaevola stipulated that Greek cases were to be settled according to Greek law.¹³ That Scaevola followed the spirit of his own edict in this area of administration can be seen through the agreement he negotiated between the cities of Sardeis and Ephesos.¹⁴ By the terms of this agreement, the cities compacted that wrongs suffered by a citizen of one of the two cities should be tried in the court of the defendant, that they should refrain from making war upon each other, or giving aid to each other’s enemies, and that they should submit all matters of dispute to a neutral city.

Although to some historians Scaevola’s negotiation between Sardeis and Ephesos has seemed...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Preface
• Abbreviations of frequently cited articles and books
• 1 The Display of Writing
• 2 The Lotteries and Distributions
• 3 The Procession of Statues
• 4 The City Plan of Ephesos
• 5 The Sacred Identity of Ephesos
• Appendix I: The Greek text and the English translation
• Appendix II: Analogous Foundations
• Appendix III: The Foundation of Demosthenes of Oinoanda
• Select modern bibliography
• Index