'Law in Roman Phrygia: rules and jurisdictions'

7 Law in Roman Phrygia: rules and jurisdictions∗ georgy kantor Outlining the problems In this chapter I shall discuss legal institutions in Phrygia during the period from the establishment of direct Roman rule in the region in the late second century BC to the first half of the third century AD, when Roman citizenship was extended to all free inhabitants of the provinces by the emperor Caracalla, and the administrative structure of the Roman province of Asia began to change more substantially than at any point during the preceding three hundred years. I shall begin with an analytical survey of the available evidence for the system of justice and its practitioners in the region, before moving on to the rather more limited information for the interplay of Roman and local rules in the sphere of substantive law. We need to ask an uncomfortable question at the outset: is ‘law in Roman Phrygia’ in the Late Republic and early Empire a proper subject of enquiry? This is, of course, part of a wider methodological problem – what is the ‘intelligible field of study’ (to use A. J. Toynbee’s well-known expression) in the history of law in the Roman provinces? Some important recent contributions have revived the notions of the unity of Hellenistic Greek law in some of its key aspects, and the essential uniformity of the Roman approach to local jurisdiction; however, few would now argue that we can follow Ludwig Mitteis in treating the whole of the Roman East as a unity.1 Are we justified, therefore, in going below the provincial level and trying to ∗ 1 I am grateful to Peter Thonemann for inviting me to contribute to the volume, for his editorial suggestions, and for sharing with me his photograph of SEG 53, 1517, and to the conference participants, in particular to Charles Crowther, Stephen Mitchell and John Wilkes, for their comments on the first version of this chapter. On the unity of Greek law, famously called into question by Moses Finley (Finley 1966 [1975]), see now Gagarin 2005 (suggesting more uniformity in the field of procedural law), and for the possibility of greater legal unity among new Hellenistic foundations, most recently Murray 2005: 203. For Mitteis’ view, Mitteis 1891: 4–6. For the view that the Roman approach to local law and jurisdiction in the eastern Mediterranean was unsystematic and driven by local concerns, which led to serious inconsistencies between different regions, see Kantor 2010; an earlier drive towards uniformity of approach is suggested in Fournier 2010, who nonetheless emphasizes that civic legal institutions themselves were never standardized . 143 144 georgy kantor discern differences between different regions of the province of Asia? And is there sufficient evidence to do so? Answers to these questions are not unproblematic. Evidence for law and legal practice in the province of Asia, and in Roman Asia Minor more generally, tends to come overwhelmingly from the more urbanized coastal part of the peninsula. Any treatment of the exercise of Roman jurisdiction in inner Anatolia, or of legal rules in place there under the Empire, will inevitably be sketchy and incomplete in comparison with what can be written about, for instance, Ephesos or Pergamon. Furthermore, for most of the period we are dealing with, it is not entirely clear what was understood as ‘Phrygia’ by the Roman government, and what relationship this entity might have borne to the wider jurisdictional structures of the Roman province. On the face of it, as famously stated by Strabo (whose evidence will be discussed below), the organization of Roman jurisdiction in Asia Minor ignored traditional ethnic and cultural regions, such as Phrygia, and substituted for them what was seemingly an entirely artificial system. Is it proper, then, when dealing with the legal sphere, to speak of ‘Roman Phrygia’ at all, at least for the period before the creation of the procuratorial district of Phrygia in the High Empire? Nevertheless, as will be argued below, we do have good evidence to suggest that some of the problems in the practical operation of law and justice, if not strictly unique to Phrygia, nonetheless distinguished it from other parts of the province of Asia (or, for that matter, Cilicia, to which it was briefly attached in the Late Republican period). Furthermore, the continued use for certain administrative (and judicial) purposes of administrative divisions based on the traditional regions of Asia Minor in the High Empire shows a recognition of their continuing vitality. Even though precise understanding of the exact administrative meaning of ‘Phrygia’ and of its significance in the legal sphere may remain elusive, this should not inhibit us from discussing the particular problems which inhabitants of the region may have had in accessing Roman justice, and which Roman governors, for their part, certainly experienced in exercising their jurisdiction there. The underlying regional characteristics of Phrygia, and the particular problems which they caused for the application of the model of jurisdiction used elsewhere in the province of Asia, have an objective historical existence whether they were in fact consciously recognized by Rome or not. Indeed, the very lack of recognition of these problems by Rome is arguably key to understanding the history of law and justice in Phrygia in the Roman period, rather than a reason to avoid discussing them altogether. However, both the limitations of our evidence and the fact of Phrygia belonging to a Law in Roman Phrygia: rules and jurisdictions wider administrative unit mean that the organization of justice in Phrygia can only be treated against a wider provincial background. I shall argue, furthermore, that the notion of there being anything distinctively ‘Phrygian’ (as opposed to ‘in Phrygia’) in the legal sphere, particularly in the substantive law, during this period is substantially more problematic. Justice and its practitioners The first court introduced in the province of Asia after the Roman annexation of the former Pergamene kingdom, the court of the proconsul, remained central to Roman jurisdiction throughout the period discussed in this chapter, and Phrygia, so far as our evidence goes, seems to have been no exception. For specific areas of competence the proconsul was helped by his subordinates, the legates, and by the provincial quaestor (responsible mostly for trade law), whose courts were closely modelled on his own. As Cicero told his brother Quintus – who, as we know from another passage in their correspondence, exercised his jurisdiction in Phrygia on at least one occasion – the governor’s duties in that province ‘consisted entirely of jurisdiction’.2 Although our evidence for Phrygia is very limited compared with the coastal parts of Roman Asia Minor, both literary and epigraphic sources strongly suggest that the assize tour of the proconsul, during which he visited the centres of jurisdiction districts (conuentus) of his province to dispense justice, especially to Roman citizens, was one of the more important annual events in the life of Phrygian cities.3 It would be apposite to open our survey with perhaps the most often quoted passage concerning the impact of proconsular assize sessions on a local community, coming from a speech of the Bithynian orator Dio Chrysostom delivered at Apameia-Kelainai, one of the assize centres for Phrygia, in or around AD 100.4 2 3 4 Cic. Q Fr. 1.1.20 (= 1 Shackleton Bailey): ea tota iurisdictione maxime sustineri. For Quintus Cicero intending to punish a certain Zeuxis ‘in the upper part of the province’ (in superiore parte prouinciae), see Q Fr. 1.2.5 (= 2 Shackleton Bailey). The phrase ‘upper part’ usually denotes Phrygia in this context, cf. e.g. Aristid. Or. 50.78, on the proconsul Iulius Severus conducting assizes ‘in the Upper Districts’ of the province in the winter of AD 152/3 (compare Or. 50.103 for ‘Upper Phrygia’, perhaps a more narrow definition). Although the system of conuentus is perhaps best known for the province of Asia, for which important evidence survives both in epigraphic and in literary sources, it also existed in many (if not necessarily all) other Roman provinces, including, in Asia Minor, at least Pontus-Bithynia, Cilicia and Lycia-Pamphylia. See in general Burton 1975; Haensch 1997: 307–12; Meyer-Zwiffelhoffer 2002: 227–37. On this passage and its date and implications, cf. C. P. Jones 1978: 67–9; Heller 2006: 137–9; Thonemann 2011a: 103–9; for a detailed commentary, see now Bost Pouderon 2006: II 103–7. 145 146 georgy kantor And what is more, the courts are in session annually among you, and they bring together an innumerable multitude of people – litigants, judges, orators, governors, attendants, slaves, pimps, muleteers, shopkeepers, prostitutes, and craftsmen. Consequently not only can those who have goods to sell obtain the highest prices, but also nothing is idle in the city, neither the teams, nor the houses, nor the women. And this contributes not a little to prosperity; for wherever the largest crowd of people comes together, there necessarily we find money in greatest abundance, and it stands to reason that the place should thrive . . . So it is, you see, that the business of the courts is deemed of highest importance towards a city’s strength and everybody is interested in it above everything else.5 Not all the details in Dio’s description are clear (in particular, as will be discussed below, the translation of παρ’ ἔτος as ‘annually’ remains debatable), but the big picture of visitors to the assizes making substantial contribution to the economic prosperity of the city is further confirmed (if with rather different moral emphasis) by shorter passages elsewhere in Dio’s own orations and in Plutarch’s Moralia concerning assize sessions elsewhere in Asia Minor.6 While it is of course impossible to prove (and probably even unlikely) that the assizes always brought such beneficial economic effects, it is important from our perspective that the benefits of being an assize city could be conceptualized in such bluntly pragmatic terms (even if, as some scholars suggest, not without a touch of irony and mild moralistic condemnation).7 This is more ‘New Institutional Economics’ than a discussion of honour accruing to the city, or even of the city’s judicial power over its neighbours and benefits for the administration of justice (to which Dio did allude in his other speeches). For the latter theme, we can look to the late third-century AD advice on composing a speech for the governor’s arrival for the assize session (ἐπιβατήριος) – ascribed to a native of one of the Phrygian assize centres, Menander from Laodikeia on the Lykos – who recommends the hypothetical orator to ‘take the evidence of the neighbouring 5 6 7 Dio Chrys. Or. 35.15–17: πρὸς δὲ τούτοις αἱ δίκαι παρ’ ἔτος ἄγονται παρ’ ὑμῖν καὶ ξυνάγεται πλῆθος ἀνθρώπων ἄπειρον δικαζομένων, δικαζόντων, ῥητόρων, ἡγεμόνων, ὑπηρετῶν, οἰκετῶν, μαστροπῶν, ὀρεοκόμων, καπήλων, ἑταιρῶν τε καὶ βαναύσων· ὥστε τά τε ὤνια τοὺς ἔχοντας πλείστης ἀποδίδοσθαι τιμῆς καὶ μηδὲν ἀργὸν εἶναι τῆς πόλεως, μήτε τὰ ζεύγη μήτε τὰς οἰκίας μήτε τὰς γυναῖκας. τοῦτο δὲ οὐ σμικρόν ἐστι πρὸς εὐδαιμονίαν. ὅπου γὰρ ἂν πλεῖστος ὄχλος ἀνθρώπων ξυνίῃ, πλεῖστον ἀργύριον ἐξ ἀνάγκης ἐκεῖ γίγνεται, καὶ τὸν τόπον εἰκὸς εὐθηνεῖν· < . . . > τοιγαροῦν μέγιστον νομίζεται πρὸς ἰσχὺν πόλεως τὸ τῶν δικῶν καὶ πάντες ἐσπουδάκασιν ὑπὲρ οὐδενὸς οὕτω (based on Loeb tr. by H. Lamar Crosby). Dio Chrys. Or. 34.47, with the observations of Desideri 1978: 462, n. 11 (Tarsos in Cilicia); Plut. Mor. 501E (perhaps concerning Smyrna in the province of Asia, cf. Lane Fox 1986: 484–6). For a possible ironic reading, Zambrini 1994. Law in Roman Phrygia: rules and jurisdictions peoples, who regard the city as a standard of justice and come to conduct their legal affairs with us’, when praising the city for its characteristic justice.8 Furthermore, returning to the economic impact, we know from the epigraphic record that, regardless of whether the crowds of visitors were necessarily bringing trade and prosperity, practical measures were needed on the city government’s part to accommodate them. So, for example, at Apameia itself Tiberius Claudius Piso Mithridatianus, member of a distinguished local family, was honoured in c. AD 160 for serving as gymnasiarch, ephebarch and agoranomos (overseer of the market-place) at the time of the assizes ‘at his own expense’, and providing oil (for baths and/or the gymnasium) during the same period; his son, Tiberius Claudius Granianus, is also honoured for serving as a gymnasiarch during the assizes at his father’s expense.9 At another Phrygian assize centre, Aizanoi, an honorary decree for an important local notable of the reign of Antoninus Pius, Marcus Ulpius Appuleianus Eurycles (later his city’s delegate to the Panhellenion), mentioned among his other benefactions that ‘during the shortage of bread he brought down the price and generously supplied a largess of corn for (the province of) Asia and the city when Cornelius Latinianus was conducting the assizes’.10 This last example obviously shows that the influx of strangers for the assize session and the concomitant rise in prices could equally well exacerbate an emergency, but the basic importance of the assizes for the local economy is once again clear. Either in the month in which the assizes took place or – if we follow the less likely view of those scholars who take παρ’ ἔτος in Dio Chrysostom (quoted above) to mean ‘biennially’ – in the year in which the proconsul was coming to a particular assize centre, civic officials evidently needed additional resources to perform their duties.11 8 9 10 11 Men. Rhet. p. 385.9–13 Spengel: Δικαιοσύνην· ἐν ᾗ μαρτυρίαν λήψῃ τῶν περιοίκων, ὅτι ταύτην ἡγούμενοι τὴν πόλιν ὅρον εἶναι δικαιοσύνης ἥκουσι παρ’ ἡμᾶς δικασόμενοι (tr. Russell and Wilson 1981). MAMA VI 180, I.6–8; II.4–7; 10–11; IGR IV 790.6–8. For similar examples from elsewhere in the province, cf. TAM V 3, 1442 (Philadelphia); I.Ephesos 661.20–24; I.Didyma 279b.11–12. As stressed already by W. M. Ramsay, this care for additional provision of oil ‘proves that something was done for the comfort of the strangers who came’ (Ramsay, Phrygia II 462); cf. further Robert, Hellenica VII 224, n. 3; 231. SEG 35, 1365 = AE 1986, 671 (before AD 156/7, most likely in AD 137–41), lines 12–15: ἐν σιτοδείᾳ ἐπευωνί|σαντα τὴν τιμὴν εὐθηνίαν τε ἄφθο|νον παρασχόντα τῇ τε ᾿Ασίᾳ καὶ τῇ πόλει | ἀγοραίαν ἄγοντος Κορνηλίου Λατινιανοῦ. For the date, Eck and Roxan 1995: 74–7 (accepted by Mitchell 1999: 23–4, n. 22). The theory of W. M. Ramsay, who understood this expression in the sense that the assizes were held at Apameia every second year, was that it alternated with some other city of the same district, perhaps Eumeneia (Ramsay, Phrygia II 365, 428–29, followed e.g. by C. P. Jones 1978: 68–9; for the usual sense of the Greek, Cobet 1876: 148). However, Ramsay’s grounds for considering Eumeneia an assize centre have been proved wrong, and it has been pointed out 147 148 georgy kantor There is no doubt, particularly at Apameia, that this was due to to a sharp increase in the city’s population for the duration of the session. While it can plausibly be argued that, in accordance with the general pattern, the assizes were usually attached to a local festival or a market fair, and, therefore, were not in fact the sole (and not necessarily even the main) reason for coming to the city at that time, there can be little doubt that the assizes at least increased the numbers of those coming to the city.12 Indeed, litigants could feel it advantageous to attend assizes in Phrygia for reasons of speed, even though their case originated in a very different part of the province. In a well-known early example, Philodamos of Lampsakos, who fell foul of the infamous Verres during the latter’s stay in that city, was summoned to trial by the governor of Asia, Gaius Claudius Nero, at the assizes at Laodikeia on the Lykos, yet another of the Phrygian assize centres, at the far end of the province from Lampsakos. Philodamos was there tried by a council, to which Nero invited the proconsul of the neighbouring province of Cilicia, Gnaeus Dolabella – who was the superior of Verres and thus had a particular interest in the case – together with all his staff.13 While this was obviously a rigged trial, there is in fact no suggestion that Nero exceeded his 12 13 that in some cases the words παρ᾿ ἔτος could simply mean ‘year by year’ (see most recently Thonemann 2011a: 103, n. 8; the sense of this expression in SEG 41, 1106.8, does not seem clear to me, however; cf. also BE 1968, no. 548), while gymnasiarchates διὰ ἀγοραίας, used by Ramsay in support of his view, should more plausibly refer to benefactors taking on themselves expenses of their office for the time of the assizes, rather than for the whole year (Burton 1975: 98). Compare ‘perpetual (εἰς αἰῶνα) gymnasiarchs’ discussed by Louis Robert (1966a: 83–5) and the fact that in the western provinces the term gymnasium denoted distributions of oil over a certain period (usually much shorter than a year), the evidence for which is collected by Fagan 1999. For the economic realities underlying the Apameian assizes, cf. Thonemann 2011a: 108. Characteristically, Dio Chrysostom (Or. 35.14) lists Cappadocians, Pamphylians and Pisidians – who were of course outside the proconsul of Asia’s jurisdiction – among the peoples who use Apameia as ‘gathering place and council’ (ἀγορὰ καὶ ξύνοδος): the phrase is the one normally used for the assizes, which he goes on to describe immediately afterwards, but they could of course have been in the city on some other business. Connection between the timing of the assize session and of the main local festival was quite typical for the province of Asia: cf. for Ephesos I.Ephesos 661.20–1 (with Mart. Timothei 8; Plut. Ant. 24.4; Arist. Or. 50.78); for Smyrna, Arist. Or. 21.16; 50.85; Mart. Polyc. 21; Mart. Pion. 19.1; for Miletos, I.Didyma 297.9–10; for Kyzikos, Arist. Or. 51.42–48; for Pergamon, perhaps I.Pergamon II 269.30. It is notable that Menander Rhetor describes the moment of the governor’s arrival for the assizes as passing ἀφ᾿ ἱερῶν ἐφ᾿ ἱερά (p. 378.29 Spengel). We should note, however, that in the age of Aelius Aristides the proconsul’s assize circuit took him to Phrygia in December/January (in AD 148 and 152: Aristid. Or. 50.78; 103), perhaps not the most natural time for the peak trade activity. Cic. Verr. II.1.73–74. A Prienean ambassador had to appear before the governor Gaius Iulius Caesar, father of the future dictator (c. 102 BC), first at Pergamon (I.Priene 111.15) and then at Laodikeia (line 32), conuentus centres in both cases. For similar journeys to assize centres of Law in Roman Phrygia: rules and jurisdictions powers in the case; indeed, parallel examples both from Laodikeia itself and from elsewhere in Asia Minor show such summonses to be not untypical, and not necessarily followed by accusations of malpractice. One doubts whether a distinguished landowner from Lampsakos would otherwise have found an occasion for a trip to Phrygia, without the need to appear before the proconsular court. Equally, litigants from Phrygia could go to assize centres elsewhere in order to obtain justice: an inscription from the age of Augustus shows the ambassadors of Aizanoi (located in the judicial district of Synnada at the time) addressing the proconsul Gaius Norbanus Flaccus when he was at the Pergamene assize, while in AD 129 litigants from the Hyrgaleian koinon (not far from Eumeneia), who had first appeared before the emperor Hadrian at Apameia, had to follow him to an assize centre ‘in Lycia’ in order to obtain a copy of his decision.14 In the early period, governors could even lump assize sessions for several different districts into one, thus compelling all litigants to make a journey outside their own conuentus. So in 50 BC Cicero scheduled assizes for the Kibyratic and the Apameian dioceses to take place at Laodikeia (the centre of the former) from 13 February to 15 March, and those for the district of Synnada, Pamphylia, Lykaonia and Isauria for another two months, from 15 March to 15 May, also at Laodikeia.15 Whether the movement of litigants around the province necessitated by the assize system led to a significant increase in wider human mobility within Roman Asia Minor is, of course, ultimately unknowable. For legal and institutional history, however, it is important that this movement of litigants around the province (and even beyond its boundaries, in the case of litigants appearing before Hadrian) must necessarily have helped to integrate Phrygia within the framework of Roman institutions and procedures. Whatever the status of local law within this framework (a theme to which we shall turn in a later section of this chapter), justice was not allowed to remain a purely local concern. 14 15 different judicial districts in cases where no judicial corruption was alleged, compare Plin. Ep. 10.81.4; Aristid. Or. 50.78; 85; 89; 96. C. Norbanus Flaccus at Pergamon: Wörrle 2011 (MAMA IX 13), line 1; Hadrian in a city [τῆς Λυ]|κίας: AE 2008, 1349.4–5 (with commentary in C. P. Jones 2009: 450). Note, however, that Phrygian Laodikeia on the Lykos was listed in a late compendium of ethnic terminology by Stephanus of Byzantium as Λαοδίκεια Λυκίας (cf. P. M. Fraser 2009: 356, accepting his emendation Λυκίας for the manuscript Λυδίας). Cic. Att. 5.21.9 [= 114 SB]; 6.2.4 [= 116 SB]; Fam. 2.13.42 [= 93 SB] (the second session ended on 1 May, as the assizes had run out of business). For the schedule of Cicero’s assizes in 51–50 BC, cf. Hunter 1913; Marshall 1966: 242–6. 149 150 georgy kantor Table 1. Legal practitioners in Roman Phrygia. Name Information Sources 1 Aur(elius) Eutychianos Robert, Hellenica X 247–56 2 (Publius Aelius?) Nikomachos Artemidoros Cornelius νομικός, died at 19 years, Akmoneia, AD 224 νομικός, died at 21 years, Aizanoi, II AD νομικός, died at 25 years, Aizanoi νομικός, commemorated by his sons Julius and Cornelianus, Dorylaion Head of the Mouseion at Smyrna for his ‘expertise in laws’,16 assessor in the governor’s court, commemorated at Temenouthyrai-Flaviopolis πραγματικός at Eumeneia, AD 173 πραγματικός at Eumeneia, III AD 3 4 5 Marcus Aristonikos Teimokrates 6 7 Proklos, s. of Proklos Gaius 8 Publius Aelius Zeuxidamos Zeno Ulpius Lycinus and Iulius Lycinus Publius Aelius Actiacus 9 10 aduocatus fisci in Phrygia, Hierapolis, Antonine period aduocati fisci, Synnada, II AD σημειογράφος (notary) at Eumeneia, II AD IGR IV 587 = SEG 34, 1288 IGR IV 588 IGR IV 533 IGR IV 618 = Drew-Bear 1979: 295–6, no. 6 MAMA IV 333 Robert, Hellenica XI/XII 414–2917 IGR IV 819.9–11 MAMA VI 373 CIG 3902d = Ramsay, Phrygia II 379, no. 20818 As I have argued elsewhere, these institutional connectivities were helped by the activities of legal and para-legal experts, who were closely connected (at least in Asia Minor) with the conuentus system and could spread knowledge of relevant proconsular decisions between different judicial districts and provinces.19 It may be convenient to provide at this point a checklist of 16 17 18 19 On the expression ἐμπειρία τῶν νόμων, cf. Robert, Hellenica V 30–1. Esp. Robert, Hellenica XI/XII 416, n. 1, for general discussion of pragmatikoi. For public archives at Eumeneia cf. Ramsay, Phrygia II 368–9; Drew-Bear 1978: 102–3, no. 40 (SEG 28, 1151; MAMA XI 46). Elsewhere in Phrygia, note e.g. CIG III 3865k (Traianopolis); 3953h (Trapezopolis); AvH 39; 55b; 67; 74; 80; 98; 100; 104; 105; 111, and numerous others from the same city; MAMA IV 27 (Prymnessos); 301 (Dionysopolis); VI 270 (Akmoneia); IX P39; P41; P43 (Aizanoi); I.Laodikeia 85; 123. Kantor 2009. It may well be an illustration of their mode of operation that the documents concerning the privileges of Jewish communities assembled (in a rather mangled form) by Flavius Josephus in his Jewish Antiquities (one of which comes from Laodikeia on the Lykos: Joseph. AJ 14.242) come, with one or two possible exceptions, exclusively from assize centres. Compare also in the epitaph of Heliodoros from Hierapolis (SEG 54, 1338.10) a reference to ‘those who practise at the assizes’ (ἀγοραῖοι) and ‘the informer’ (δηλάτωρ, interestingly a transliteration of the Latin word, suggesting the use of Roman legal procedure), who are promised rewards for taking up a case against the violator of the grave. Law in Roman Phrygia: rules and jurisdictions such experts known to us in Phrygia. I include here not only jurists proper, but everyone with a claim to some kind of legal expertise, such as treasury advocates (aduocati fisci) and notaries: as is widely accepted in recent scholarship, there does not seem to be much point in introducing hard and fast distinctions between various types of legal practitioners in a provincial context.20 All of our data belong to the period of the High Empire, and while the assize system was there from the start, legal expertise connected to it seems to have taken some time to develop. In the early first century AD, Strabo, when speaking of Asia Minor, could still think of the term nomikoi as denoting an exclusively Roman reality.21 It would be interesting to know to what extent this development is connected to the decline of local jurisdiction and the growing need to practise in Roman courts. At the very least, we should not assume that the apparent similarities of Roman judicial procedures throughout most of the period discussed here somehow mean that this was a period of static continuity in Phrygian legal practice. The late emergence of nomikoi (here as elsewhere in Asia Minor) seems to be about more than just changes in the ‘epigraphic habit’. It is also important to stress that, as can be seen from the onomastics of this list, and indeed from a closer look at the texts themselves, many of the Phrygian legal practitioners were not necessarily very high on the social scale. Some of them (Proklos, city solicitor at Eumeneia, or Artemidoros at Aizanoi) were clearly not Roman citizens, and even some of those who had Roman-sounding names, like Cornelius and his sons at Dorylaion, might not have been citizens. The absence of the tria nomina is telling, and Cornelius’ sons did not make any claims beyond that of legal education for their father: ‘Julius and Cornelianus for Cornelius, their father, a jurist’. Those individuals who do possess Roman citizenship are for the most part citizens of only very recent extraction (not, of course, that this means they could not have been local notables), and in the case of a Eumeneian notary of the civic phyle Athenais, one wonders from his name (P. Aelius Actiacus) whether he might not have been a freedman, exceptionally admitted to the citizen body.22 If true, this is somewhat in contrast, interestingly, with the situation elsewhere in the province of Asia, where nomikoi, Roman citizens 20 21 22 For the nomikoi (jurists) in the list above (our nos. 1–5), see most recently C. P. Jones 2007: 1349–50, nos. 22–26. Strabo 12.2.9 (539C). It is unclear whether Nikomachos (our no. 2) was a Roman citizen like his brother Publius Aelius Bolanus: neither his own name, nor those of their sisters Menothemis and Sosandra, are preceded by a Roman gentilicium. 151 152 georgy kantor or not, were more often than not members of local councils or celebrated for cultural achievements outside the legal sphere.23 The only example of this kind in Phrygia is Marcus Aristonikos Teimokrates of Temenouthyrai, and his career took him elsewhere. But even he, for all his brilliant advancement at the Smyrna Mouseion (which seems to have been, among other things, one of the centres of legal education in the province, and definitely served as a provincial archive) and service on the governor’s court, does not look like a Roman citizen, even though he clearly was an important figure in the context of his backwater home town.24 It is even more striking, then, that even people from conceivably rather undistinguished backgrounds were taking to legal education in Phrygia. The ages of the first three men on our list are telling: they were students of law, rather than established professionals, a pattern of commemoration known elsewhere in Asia Minor (particularly at Alexandria Troas, a destination of many of these students).25 This means, besides the obvious fact that there were possibilities of social advancement in choosing a legal career, that by the time of the High Empire in order to become a legal professional you had to start early and to have some sort of legal training, whether this was under the guidance of provincial compatriots at Smyrna, or further afield at Alexandria Troas, Berytus or Rome, or at some unknown place closer to home. Only the existence of a corporate identity of this kind could allow a youth of 19 years already to be identified as a ‘jurist’, and such an identity could only grow within a wider Roman framework, which in turn could only have been provided, in practical terms, by the assize structure. 23 24 25 Aurelius Eutychianos (our no. 1) was son of a bouleutes. Members of local councils elsewhere: Publius Pinnius Iustus from Amastris in Bithynia (CIL VIII 15876); Diogenes from Herakleia under Salbake in Caria (Robert and Robert 1954: 171, no. 61); Aelius Aurelius Ammianus Papias (IAph2007 12.21) and Aelius Aurelius Ammianus Paulinus (IAph2007 12.22) from Aphrodisias; Aurelius Annianus from Thyateira (TAM V 2, 933); Menander, stephanephoros of Smyrna (I.Smyrna 372); Titus Aurelius Iulianus, archon at Nysa (SEG 45, 1535); Claudianus, strategos of Mysian Stratonikeia (SEG 45, 1676). Wider literary culture: Aurelius Annianus, rhetor and nomikos at Thyateira (TAM V 2, 933); a man from Nysa commemorated for his oratory and knowledge of laws (Radet 1890: 224–31, no.2); Menneas, from Ariassos in Pisidia, experienced in law and distinguished in rhetoric (I.Pis.Cent. 131); Onesikles, s. of Diodoros, from Hierapolis-Kastabala, writer of epic verse and of New Comedy iambics, of panegyrics, and nomikos among the most distinguished (Hicks 1890: 249, no. 23); Lucius Eiutius Elis from Amisos in Bithynia, knowledgeable in laws and geometry (I.Smyrna 893). For the Smyrna Mouseion acting as an archive, I.Smyrna 191.16–17. On young lawyers in the Roman world, see Kleijwegt 1991: 165–86. For examples from elsewhere in Asia Minor, compare ILS 7742; Doerner 1952: 58, no.15; I.Smyrna 893; SEG 33, 906; SEG 2, 715 = AE 2003, 1744F. Law in Roman Phrygia: rules and jurisdictions Patterns of jurisdiction Let us now look at the operation of this structure, and the practical problems of exercising justice through it, in closer detail. Evidence for the existence, the centres and sometimes the territorial extent of the assize districts derives both from literary sources (particularly Cicero and Pliny the Elder) and from inscriptions, above all the Neronian customs law of the province of Asia, a list of delegates to the temple of Caligula at Miletos, and a Flavian list of assize districts from Ephesos.26 This evidence is more abundant and reliable than is the case for any other aspect of our discussion. We can start by summarizing the evidence briefly for each Phrygian district. I take the district of Philomelion (otherwise known as the Lykaonian) together with the Phrygian ones, as is usually done, even though, as will be seen below, this is open to certain objections. Apameia: A cistophoric mint under the Attalids, so should have belonged to the organization of Phrygia after the initial annexation.27 Attested explicitly between 62 BC and the Flavian period: Cic. Flacc. 68; Att. 5.16.2 [= 109 SB]; 5.20.1 [= 113 SB]; Fam. 3.8.6 [= 70 SB]; 15.4.2 [= 110 SB]; SEG 39, 1180.91; Plin. HN 5.106; I.Didyma 148.15–16; SEG 37, 884 (I.Ephesos 13) II 17–39.28 In the later period we have a decision of Hadrian issued at Apameia in AD 129,29 the proconsular legate Granius Castus conducting assizes there in AD 126/7,30 and ‘Phrygian martyrs’ dying there, presumably condemned to death by the proconsul (Euseb. Hist. eccl. 5.16.22, quoting Apollinaris of Hierapolis); hence there is little doubt that it retained its status. Synnada: Perhaps an Attalid cistophoric mint.31 Firm attestations in the Late Republican and Augustan age: Cic. Att. 5.16.2 [=109 SB]; 5.20.1 26 27 28 29 30 Cicero’s evidence comes from his speech in defence of Lucius Valerius Flaccus (governor of Asia in 62 BC) and his letters from Cilicia in 51/50 BC; Pliny the Elder’s information is usually seen as based on official lists of the age of Augustus. There is also some second-century evidence in Aelius Aristides and Flavius Philostratus. The relevant section of the Customs Law, though inscribed (and still valid) in AD 62, belongs to 17 BC: SEG 39, 1180.91; Milesian temple of Caligula: I.Didyma 148, with the best edition and fullest discussion in Robert, Hellenica VII, 206–38; Ephesos text: SEG 37, 884 = I.Ephesos 13. Discussions of the Asian assize system are numerous: see most recently Guerber 2009: 303–23; Fournier 2010: 62–87 (esp. p. 76 for the Phrygian districts). Kleiner and Noe 1977: 86–96. For connection between Attalid cistophoric mints and Roman conuentus centres, Gray 1978: 975; Ameling 1988: 18; Mileta 1990: 431–2; Mitchell 1999: 24–5. A list of member communities, cf. Habicht 1975: 80–7, for full discussion. SEG 58, 1536 = AE 2008, 1349.19: acc(eptus) X Kal. Aug. Apam. in Asia. 31 Mørkholm 1979: 50–3. Drew-Bear 1978: 19–22, no. 11 (SEG 28, 1162; SEG 41, 1236). 153 154 georgy kantor [=113 SB]; Fam. 3.8.6 [= 70 SB]; 15.4.2 [= 110 SB]; SEG 39, 1180.91; Plin. HN 5.105. The district is represented by Protomachos, s. of Glykon, from Iulia, in I.Didyma 148.12. Procuratorial hearing at Synnada (AD 237): SEG 16, 754.33–4.32 Laodikeia on the Lykos (dioikesis Kibyratikē): Created after the conquest of the Kibyratis by Murena in 84 BC (Strabo 13.4.17); cf., however, I.Priene 111.32, a possible proconsular hearing in the city in c. 102 BC, which may have some connection with the decision to place the capital of the diocese in Laodikeia, rather than Kibyra.33 Firm attestations from 80 BC to the Antonine age: Cic. Verr. II.1.72–6; Flacc. 68; Att. 5.15.1 [=108 SB]; 5.16.2 [= 109 SB]; 5.20.1 [= 113 SB]; 5.21.9 [= 114 SB]; Fam. 3.8.6 [= 70 SB]; 15.4.2 [= 110 SB]; SEG 39, 1180.91; Plin. HN 5.105;34 I.Didyma 148.16; Arist. Or. 50.103;35 Philostr. VS I.25.539. Mention of the martyrdom of Sagaris in Laodikeia (Euseb. Hist. eccl. 5.24.5, quoting from a letter of Polycrates to Pope Victor, AD 189–99) may also be relevant.36 Capital of Phrygia Pacatiana in Late Antiquity, perhaps in direct continuity with its status as an assize capital.37 Aizanoi: first attested explicitly in the Antonine period (AE 1986, 671 = SEG 35, 1365.15, c. AD 137–41).38 The district probably existed by c. AD 111, when a visit to Aizanoi was prescribed by the mandata (official instructions from the emperor) of the proconsul Quintus Fabius Postuminus (IGR IV 572; Robert 1937: 301–5; MAMA IX P24, lines 2–5).39 Before that, Aizanoi was in all likelihood part of the Synnada district.40 Philomelion (Lykaonia): An ἐπαρχεία Λυκαονία, presumably more or less identical with the assize district, existed by 101 BC: RS 12 (Knidos copy), col. III.22–7.41 Attested later with a centre at Philomelion: Cic. Att. 5.20.1 [= 113 SB]; Fam. 3.8.6 [= 70 SB]; 15.4.2 [= 110 SB]; SEG 39, 1180.91; 32 33 34 35 37 38 39 40 41 See further below. Compare also honours to Aur. Elpidephoros, ‘the most just procurator of Augustus’ (Drew-Bear and Sacco 2006/7: 270, no. 3, lines 2–4), and Aurelius Aristainetos, ‘the most just procurator of Phrygia’ (MAMA IV 63), in the Severan period, both from Synnada. Note Dmitriev 2005: 80–1, for Aquillian milestones at Laodikeia, showing presumably that it was not given over to Mithridates V. We should emend the manuscript conueniunt eo XXV ciuitates to conueniunt ea in Pliny’s passage (so Ameling 1988: 23, n. 72; Heller 2006: 127, n. 9), thus removing the anomalous placing of the district’s centre at Kibyra itself. 36 Fournier 2010: 82, n. 443. Cf. Behr 1968: 63, n. 14. Ramsay, Phrygia I 80–2; A. H. M. Jones 1971: 530; TIB Phrygien 71–83, 323–6. Cf. n. 10 above for the date. The word ἐπιδημία, used by Postuminus of his arrival in the city, is used in the sense of conuentus in Egypt: Capponi 2005: 30. A. H. M. Jones 1971: 65. For an Attalid countermarking authority which might have been its predecessor, Thonemann 2008. Law in Roman Phrygia: rules and jurisdictions Plin. HN 5.95; I.Didyma 148.18. In the joint reign of Septimius Severus, Caracalla and Geta, Maximius Attianus, quaestor pro praetore, demarcated the boundaries between Philomelion and Antioch in Pisidia, acting as a delegate of the proconsul Sempronius Senecio (AE 1997, 1448); this does not, however, strictly confirm that Philomelion still possessed conuentus status at this point.42 In all of these districts, justice was at certain periods administered by governors of provinces other than Asia, vividly illustrating how the Roman governor’s travel convenience could be a paramount consideration in administrative arrangements. There is, however, a distinct difference here between the Philomelion district and the Phrygian districts proper. All of them were under Cicero’s jurisdiction when he was proconsul of Cilicia in 51/50 BC, but he treats them in different ways: he calls Apameia, Synnada and Laodikeia ‘three Asian districts attached’ to his province, but nowhere describes Philomelion in this way, which suggests that he considered it a ‘normal’ part of Cilicia.43 Nor is there any evidence that Lykaonia was transferred back to Asia along with Laodikeia, Apameia and Synnada in 49 BC, or indeed at any point before the final dissolution of the province of Cilicia by Caesar or the triumvirs. The most natural assumption would be that Philomelion was put in the province of Cilicia at the time of its establishment as a regular ‘territorial province’, and so perhaps as early as 91 BC, rather than in 56 BC, when, as we know from the numismatic evidence, the same happened to the three Phrygian districts.44 Equally, it is a distinct possibility that in some later periods it was the Imperial legate in Galatia, rather than the proconsul of Asia, who was responsible for providing jurisdiction at Philomelion; the natural route from Ankyra to Antioch in Pisidia would take him through Philomelion. Indeed, an inscription of c. AD 105 shows the governor of Galatia, Calvisius Ruso Iulius Frontinus, taking responsibility for road repairs near Philomelion.45 By the time of 42 43 44 45 For Attianus acting as a iudex delegatus rather than exercising quaestorian jurisdiction proper, see Christol and Drew-Bear 1998: 162. I am grateful to Stephen Mitchell for supplying me with a photograph of another unpublished specimen of this text. Cic. Fam. 13.67.1 [= 296 SB]: τρεῖς διοκήσεις Asiaticas adtributas. Numismatic evidence and chronology of the transfer of the ‘three dioceses’: Magie 1950: II 1245, n. 18; 1313, n. 17; Syme 1939 [1979]: 121–2, n. 4. Earlier transfer of Philomelion: Sherwin-White 1976: 11; Ferrary 2000: 169, n. 45; Heller 2006: 125–6, n. 4; 379–80, n. 3. It is noteworthy, however, that the most natural reading of Cic. Verr. II.3.191 implies that taxes from Philomelion were sent to Ephesos in 70 BC. MAMA VII 193, with the observations of W. M. Calder, MAMA VII, xix, who suggests that the mistaken ‘Rusticus’ for ‘Ruso’ implies that his predecessor Arulenus Rusticus was also active at Philomelion. On connections between the Lykaonian road system and Apameia and Philomelion, cf. Ballance 1958: 232. Further mentions of Galatian governors and their legates 155 156 georgy kantor Maximius Attianus’ mission, however, the district was obviously back in the Asian fold, as can also be seen from the local bronzes with the SPQR legend (suitable only for a public province) which were minted under the Severans and Decius.46 During the principate of Claudius it can be argued on similar grounds that it was the Kibyratic district which was briefly the odd one out. Certain similarities with the Late Republican situation can be observed in this case. The first Imperial legate of Lycia, Quintus Veranius, was responsible for the road ‘in Asia between Kibyra and Laodikeia’, as we know from a list of roads put up by the Lycian League at Patara; he also received honours at Kibyra, where coins with his name and the name of his successor Eprius Marcellus are also known.47 It is not impossible that this arrangement was not restricted to the city of Kibyra itself (even if our evidence is almost entirely confined to it), and that the Laodikeian assizes were for a few years conducted by Veranius and Marcellus when they were in the area. But if so, it is significant that the Patara list still treats Kibyra and Laodikeia as being ‘in Asia’, in the same way as Cicero had treated the Phrygian districts back in 51 BC. A more permanent transfer of the region from one province to another was not on the cards. Several salient features stand out from the above summary. First, the structure was, despite the short-lived transfers of Phrygian and Lykaonian districts to other provinces, a remarkably stable one. Between the creation of the Kibyratic district (if it was indeed as late as 84 BC) and the elevation of Aizanoi in the early second century AD, the structure did not change, and remarkably, even though Cicero could hold combined assize sessions for several districts, he still saw the districts themselves as distinct and not to be changed at will. Whatever the legal developments of this period, they were, as so often in Roman institutional history, hidden behind a remarkably fossilized structure. Second, in what relation did the jurisdictional structure stand to the traditional regional divisions of Asia Minor, to which it outwardly bore little resemblance? In other words, can we meaningfully speak of ‘Phrygia’ from the point of view of Roman jurisdiction? As stressed by the geographer 46 47 having authority over ‘Lykaonia’ (cf. Sherk 1980: 1004–11, for Aulus Caesennius Gallus and Gaius Antius Iulius Quadratus) are irrelevant; as Pliny the Elder makes clear (HN 5.95; 5.147), part of Lykaonia (‘Obizene’) was under Galatian jurisdiction at the same time as Philomelion was a district of Asia. See now Vitale 2012: 98–110. BMC Phrygia xc. The road: SEG 51, 1832C.28–9 (stadiasmos from Patara, AD 45/6); honours to Veranius: IGR IV 902 = SEG 34, 1311 = 41, 1373; coins: RPC I 2889 (Veranius); 2890 (Marcellus). The Patara list disproves the hypothesis that the city of Kibyra was formally transferred to Lycia at the time (on which see Erkelenz 1998; RPC II, p. 118). Law in Roman Phrygia: rules and jurisdictions Strabo, who was writing the relevant part of his work during the principate of Tiberius, ‘the Phrygian and the Carian and the Lydian parts [of Asia Minor], as also those of the Mysians, are hard to distinguish, since they merge into one another. And it has contributed not a little to this confusion that the Romans do not divide them by tribe, but have organized the dioceses in which they have assizes and provide justice in a different fashion.’48 For Pliny the Elder, the borders of Phrygia were much wider than the borders of Cicero’s ‘three Asiatic jurisdictions’ had ever been.49 It has been persuasively argued that the separate identity of Phrygia and Lykaonia was recognized by Rome in some form from the very first years of the province of Asia, when Phrygia was given for a few years to the king of Pontos, and Lykaonia to the king of Cappadocia. However, the relation of that recognition to the assize structure – and, therefore, the extent to which you could be a ‘Phrygian’ from the point of view of jurisdiction – remains not fully clear.50 When a procuratorial province of Phrygia (of which more below) comes into existence in the High Empire, its centre appears to be at Hierapolis, rather than at any of the old assize centres, although its boundaries presumably did not cut across the conuentus boundaries.51 While Strabo claimed that Laodikeia was ‘the greatest city of Phrygia’, and Philostratus stated that in the lifetime of the great sophist Polemo, Phrygia was ‘being administered’ by Laodikeia, nonetheless, the koinon of Phrygia, an obscure institution known only through a handful of coins, seems to have been connected to Apameia rather than Laodikeia, and has even been described as ‘a way of conceptualizing the Apameian assizes’.52 It would be interesting to know to what extent the dissolution of local legal peculiarities was accelerated by the breaking up of Phrygia into jurisdiction districts which incorporated some 48 49 50 51 52 Strabo 13.4.12: ὥστε καὶ τὰ Φρύγια καὶ τὰ Καρικὰ καὶ τὰ Λύδια καὶ ἔτι τὰ τῶν Μυσῶν δυσδιάκριτα εἶναι παραπίπτοντα εἰς ἄλληλα· εἰς δὲ τὴν σύγχυσιν ταύτην οὐ μικρὰ συλλαμβάνει τὸ τοὺς ῾Ρωμαίους μὴ κατὰ φῦλα διελεῖν αὐτούς, ἀλλὰ ἕτερον τρόπον διατάξαι τὰς διοικήσεις, ἐν αἷς τὰς ἀγοραίους ποιοῦνται καὶ τὰς δικαιοδοσίας (based on Loeb tr. by H. L. Jones). The rendering of ἀγοραίους as ‘popular assemblies’ in the Loeb translation needs correcting; cf. Radt 2008: 558, for the terminology. See on this passage Habicht 1975: 68; Ameling 1988: 15; Merola 2001: 180, n. 152. Plin. HN 5.145–6, and see now Vitale 2012: 65–7. That belonging to an assize district mattered is perhaps suggested by the fact that Kibyra now begins to be described as a Phrygian city, e.g. by Plin. HN 5.105 (compare Strabo 13.4.14 for its ethnic origins). On the ‘corporate identity of Phrygia’, Thonemann 2011a: 112–3. An attempt to provide a systematic history in Vitale 2012: 65–88. An εἰρηνοφύλαξ τῆς ἐπαρχείας is known, showing a role of this structure in maintaining public order, and therefore in the operation of criminal justice: SEG 40, 1232–3 (AD 79). Hierapolis as the centre of the financial district: SEG 49, 1813 (on which I agree with Ritti 1999: 270–1; the connection with the Laodikeian conuentus, posited by Heller 2006: 145–6, is conjectural). On the relationship between the fiscal and assize districts, Thonemann 2011a: 113, n. 39. Laodikeia: Strabo 12.8.13; Philostr. VS 1.25.539; koinon of Phrygia: Thonemann 2011a: 109–17 (quote from p. 115); for a somewhat different approach, Vitale 2012: 80–3. 157 158 georgy kantor ethnically non-Phrygian communities, not to mention the implicit status of the Phrygians (as with other indigenous peoples of the province) as ‘Greeks’ for Roman legal purposes. Alternatively, this process of homogenization may have been counteracted by joint institutions such as the procuratorial district or the koinon – but our evidence is insufficient to provide an answer.53 Third, we have to ask how far this structure could have really provided effective justice to the local population. The proconsul did not visit northern Phrygia at all, and the distances to be covered by the litigants could often be very considerable. The problem could only have been exacerbated by the scarcity (compared to other parts of the province) of urban life in the Phrygian and Lykaonian uplands (see Thonemann, Chapter 1 above), and, beginning with the age of Augustus, the huge extent of the Imperial estates in the region. Although our evidence for civic jurisdiction in this part of the province is very scarce and mostly inferential, it is natural to assume that city-dwellers could, as elsewhere in Roman Asia Minor, resolve minor private law disputes and pursue petty crime before civic authorities.54 What, however, was a villager on an Imperial estate to do in cases of theft, assault or debt disputes, insofar as the Roman authorities were concerned? And what was happening in between the proconsular visits? Presumably the villages were dealing with such issues in some form, but were there any mechanisms elevated to the level of public recognition after the Attalid judges on the former royal estates disappeared with the coming of Rome? For more than 150 years after the annexation of Phrygia our evidence gives no answer to this crucial question. As Peter Brunt said in a different context, ‘Russian peasants have a proverb: “Heaven is high and the Tsar far off”. Perhaps the experience of Rome’s subjects was not greatly different.’55 An answer begins to appear after Claudius granted jurisdiction to his procurators in AD 53, perhaps not only on the Imperial estates but also 53 54 55 On Phrygians being counted as ‘Greeks’, see e.g. Cic. Flacc. 17; cf. most recently Ferrary 2001. At Laodikeia the duties of the nomophylax (guardian of the laws) included receiving payments for the oikonomēmata (registration of legal transactions in the public archive): I.Laodikeia 82.8–10, with full discussion in Robert 1969: 269–72 (for another Laodikeian nomophylax, cf. I.Laodikeia 44). This implies at least some sort of local rules still in operation even in a conuentus centre, where Roman justice would be most readily available. A decree of Hierapolis (MAMA IV 297 and I.Denizli 15; translation and commentary in Brélaz 2005: 396–8, with some corrections in Thonemann 2011a: 194) allows owners of the vineyards to flog slave shepherds trespassing on their land, after reporting them to the local police officers (paraphylakes). Of course, the existence of local police chiefs (see Masséglia, Chapter 5 above, on their pictorial representations) strongly suggests that the power of castigating minor offences was retained by the local authorities across the region. Brunt 1990: 73. For the only village court attested in Roman Asia Minor, IGR III 409.6–8 (Pogla in Pisidia). Law in Roman Phrygia: rules and jurisdictions in some other cases involving fiscal interests.56 Evidence for procuratorial jurisdiction in Phrygia, perhaps unsurprisingly in the light of the local peculiarities of settlement and corporate organization delineated above, is, in fact, rather more abundant than elsewhere in the province of Asia. The presence of the aduocati fisci at Hierapolis and Synnada (see Table 1 above) clearly indicates trials before procurators on fiscal matters (especially clear at Hierapolis, which was not a seat of proconsular justice), and the separate existence of Phrygia as a fiscal district, referred to above, is well attested from the reign of Hadrian onwards.57 As in our other examples from Asia Minor, however, procurators act as judges in conjunction with (or even under direct instructions from) the provincial governor until relatively late. So in AD 125/6, our earliest example, the procurator Hesperus acted on the proconsul’s mandata in the settlement of the lands of the temple of Zeus at Aizanoi, and even as late as AD 213 the proconsul Gavius Tranquillus and the procurator Phrygiae Aurelius Philocyrius acted closely together in preventing abuses of soldiers at Takina.58 The first document in which the proconsul is not present at all is the early third-century dispute between the villagers of Anossa and Antimacheia over transport requisitions (angareia), a key piece of evidence on a number of other issues as well: from the organization of Roman taxation, the transport system in the province, and the spread of the new Severan chancery practices to the character of village self-government in Phrygia and its mode of communication with Imperial authorities. A new edition and translation of the text, using for the first time the materials from the Ballance archive, is currently being prepared by Charles Crowther, which will put its study on a firmer basis.59 This text also gives us a glimpse of a greater accessibility of procuratorial justice as compared with proconsular jurisdiction. The hearings take place at Prymnessos (line 30), Synnada (line 34), and even at Anossa itself (line 1). Eventually, the villagers of Anossa, who had been unsuccessful in presenting their case without taking legal advice, express 56 57 58 59 Tac. Ann. 12.60, a much debated passage, and for the province of Asia, SEG 39, 1180.147–8, with Kantor 2011. Christol and Drew-Bear 2005; Vitale 2012: 70–5. IGR IV 819 clearly indicates that appointments as aduocatus fisci in Phrygia and in Asia were separate. Aizanoi settlement: MAMA IX, xxxvi–xliii; Takina: Hauken 1998: 217–41, no. 6. Earlier text in SEG 16, 754 (translated by Levick 2000: 63–5, no. 57). A forthcoming paper by Dmitry Bratkin (presented at the I Moscow Epigraphic Conference, 31 January 2012) convincingly argues that the form of the minutes (down to the abbreviations used) is similar to that first attested in Egypt in AD 213 (P.Ross.Georg. V 18). This is of obvious significance as evidence for the developing standardization of Roman court and chancery practices. 159 160 georgy kantor Figure 7.1. Petition of the villagers of Tymion and Simoe to Septimius Severus and Caracalla. SEG 53, 1517. Uşak Museum. their intention of making a further representation through an advocate at Dokimeion (line 12); to judge by his manner of refusing, this would presumably have come before the same procurator Threptus, rather than any separate appeal authority. It looks as though the procurator is conducting his own mini-tour of the area, taking him to considerably more obscure places than the proconsul was ever likely to visit. The reasons why fully independent procuratorial jurisdiction appears in the epigraphic record so late seem to be indicated in the Imperial response to the petition of the villagers of Tymion and Simoe in AD 205 or 208 concerning some sort of unlawful exactions (Fig. 7.1): Our procurator will set himself against unlawful exactions and against those who persist [in demanding the services instantly?]. If, however, the matter will need a stronger [punishment], let him not hesitate to [defend] these persons before the governor of the province [of Asia] against [those who exact services illicitly in accordance with] the manner of his office.60 60 [—P]roc(urator) noster i[nte]rponet se aduersum in|[licitas] exact[i]ones et a[duer]sum perseuerantes ut e[xi|gant i]nstant[issime muner?]a.. Aut si res ma<i>orem u[i|ndictam] desider[abit non cu]nctabitur at praeside[m] [proui]nciae [Asiae defender]e. eas personas aduer|[sum i]n..l.ic.[ite munera? exigentes? in] officii sui modum (SEG 53, 1517.11–16; definitive Law in Roman Phrygia: rules and jurisdictions While the text is heavily restored and not unproblematic, we can at least see that as late as the reign of Septimius Severus, the judicial powers of an Imperial procurator were still quite restricted. In all cases other than the most minor infringements, the villagers had still to involve a higher (and not easily accessible) authority. The situation could be rather different in lesser cases, not important enough to merit epigraphic commemoration (notably, the hearings before Threptus at the village of Anossa took place only five years after the Tymion petition), but for obvious reasons the relative prevalence of the two different levels of jurisdiction remains unknown. One wonders, accordingly, how successful procuratorial justice really was in compensating for the inaccessibility of the governor’s assizes. The development in the Imperial period in rural parts of Phrygia (and neighbouring Lydia) of the remarkable habit of erecting so-called ‘confession inscriptions’ (prayers for divine justice and confessions of misdemeanours after the divine retribution recorded in sanctuaries in the presence of priests) should be mentioned in this context.61 The language of these inscriptions often bears striking resemblances to contemporary legal terminology, and many secular offences, from theft to violence, figure in the confessions. While the hypothesis that these are records of actual trials before the priests has been abandoned in recent scholarship, and the cultic practices themselves may have had early Anatolian roots, the highly formal (and quasi-judicial in outlook) procedures which were adopted for confessions and accusations may well suggest that Roman justice was not entirely trusted, and that a gap in its provisions was widely felt.62 It is, again, characteristic that more serious felonies, which would be likely to attract the attention of Roman authorities, do not appear on confession stelai. At least in some cases, however, the problem perceived may have been not so much with the accessibility of justice, as with the desire to punish immoral behaviour which was not covered by any legal sanction. A characteristic 61 62 edition by Tabbernee and Lampe 2008: 49–74, whose translation is adopted here with some changes). The restoration u[indictam] in lines 13–14 suggested by S. Mitchell in Cooley, Mitchell and Salway 2007: 202 (T. and L.: u[i|gorem]). The Latin is not everywhere unproblematic, particularly at the end of the first sentence, where it is furthermore unclear whether those who demanded that munera should be provided instantissime were necessarily doing anything wrong from the imperial point of view. My examination of the photograph, however, appears to confirm the remains of the bottom right of an A at the end of the following lacuna, which precludes a more typical phrase along the lines of ut e[ius co]nstant[iam deceat]. For the ‘confession inscriptions’ from Phrygia, see Petzl 1994: nos. 106–24, from the important sanctuary of Apollo Lairbenos north of Hierapolis; a checklist of a further eight texts in SEG 44, 951. Recent literature on the subject is abundant: for a recent overview, see Chaniotis 2009. For the Anatolian roots of the practice, Ricl 1995a; against the idea of temple trials (advanced by Zingerle 1926), see Chaniotis 1997; Chaniotis 2004; Schuler 2012: 82–3. 161 162 georgy kantor text from the sanctuary of Apollo Lairbenos shows a certain Nik . . . being punished for destroying or cancelling a document promising to manumit one of his slaves through the sanctuary – an action unlikely to get punished in a court of law.63 The wider relation of the confession practices to the legal landscape is a subject that will still repay further study. Interaction of rules The surviving fragments from the writings of Roman jurists and Imperial decisions in late legal collections, our main source for Roman law, do not retain much sign of interest in Phrygian local conditions. This is in itself unsurprising. By the time these fragments were assembled in the Late Empire, Roman law had long been the only valid legal system, and the compilers were only interested in what was still valid in their own day. Classical jurists, for example Gaius in his unique commentary on the provincial edict (perhaps that of the province of Asia), could surely have provided much more detail. Still, it is worth noting that even the only text which may show some knowledge of Phrygian peculiarities may have been informed more by the literary tradition than by actual acquaintance with local practice. The texts from our period in the Corpus iuris which certainly mention Phrygia are only two in number; a third is rather doubtful. A rescript of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus to the city of Hierapolis, quoted by the jurist Callistratus in the first book of his De cognitionibus (On Enquiries), asserts the general principle that children should not be punished for crimes of their parents, and could have been issued for any part of the Empire.64 The same applies to a rescript of Severus Alexander to a certain Crispus, studying at ‘Laodikeia’ (Laodikeia on the Lykos is not impossible), confirming that for the first ten years students will not get domicilium (residency) in the city of their school.65 Most interesting of all, however, is the discussion of the application of the interdictum de aqua cottidiana et aestiva (an injunction to protect the right to draw water from somebody else’s estate) to warm water used for irrigation at Hierapolis in Phrygia in book LXX of Ulpian’s commentary Ad edictum.66 The passage arguably comes from the famous jurist of the age of Augustus, Marcus Antistius Labeo, who is referred to by 63 64 65 66 MAMA IV 279 (Petzl 1994: 122–5, no. 106). Dig. 48.19.26 = Lenel, Pal., Callistr. 11; Gualandi 1963: 117. CJ 10.40.2. Laodikeia (without a further title) is more likely to be the city in Phrygia than either of those in Syria or Lykaonia; cf. Robert 1969: 279–80 for the titles of these cities. Dig. 43.20.1.13 = Lenel, Pal., Ulp. 1569. Law in Roman Phrygia: rules and jurisdictions Ulpian earlier in the same passage; the standard edition of the fragments of pre-Hadrianic jurists cuts off the Labeo fragment before the mention of Hierapolis, but without any arguments for doing so, and the case of Hierapolis serves as a good example to illustrate the point argued for by Labeo.67 However, the qualities of the water at Hierapolis were known to another Augustan author, Vitruvius, and it is legitimate to wonder whether Labeo took his example of a nice legal puzzle (whether the injunction intended to apply to drawing cold water for agricultural needs also applies to drawing hot water, if the latter is used in agriculture) from his reading of contemporary authors, rather than from any deep familiarity with Asian conditions.68 On the ground, cultural and ethnic identities in Phrygia were incredibly mixed and fluid, and one of the largest problems in the legal history of the region is the extent to which inclusion in the wider structures of justice, combined with the habit of the Roman administration to treat everyone in the region as Greeks (referred to in the previous section), may have led to the development of a common milieu of legal rules. An inscription chosen from the MAMA volumes almost at random and not in itself presenting any legal difficulties will illustrate my point: ‘Lucius Arruntius [A]ciamus provided the Augustan water to the community (ciuitati) at his own expense.’69 This benefactor is a Roman citizen (with his citizenship acquired through the services of a Roman proconsul during the principate of Tiberius); his original name (preserved as a Roman cognomen) is Lydian; he offers a benefaction to the Phrygian city of Synnada, which he calls (in spite of being now a Roman citizen) his ciuitas. Under which law was his gift to the city made? Perhaps even more importantly, did he necessarily distinguish between rules from different ‘legal systems’? Examples from elsewhere in the Roman world show that a mix, albeit presumably never officially authorized, was in practice perfectly possible. One ethnic group which is likely to have retained at least a measure of its specific law is the Jews, whose communities were numerous in the region from the time when they were planted there as military settlers by the Seleukids. However, our evidence is insufficient to claim this with certainty, and in any case their legal situation was bound to be fairly untypical.70 Fines 67 68 69 70 Bremer, Iurispr. antehadr. II.1, Antistius Labeo fr. VI.197. Vitr. 8.3.10. For a full account of the ancient sources on the thermal waters of Hierapolis, cf. Ritti 1985: 16–22; on the water-supply of Hierapolis, see now Ritti, Grewe and Kessener 2007. L. Arruntius [A]ciamus aquam Augustam de suo | ciuitati dedit (MAMA IV 70, Synnada). On dedications of an Aqua Augusta after Augustus’ death, Keppie 1983: 116. For the Lydian name ᾿Ακιαμός, Zgusta 1964a: 51 §36. For the view that Jewish communities may not have been covered by the definition of the ‘Greeks in the province’, de Visscher 1940: 50. 163 164 georgy kantor for grave violations were payable to the Jewish community at Hierapolis, but it is well established that such fines could be paid even to entities which did not have any judicial authority. A remarkable funerary inscription from Apameia, which tells any potential intruder ‘you know the law of the Jews’ is, in all probability, a reference to curses from the book of Deuteronomy, more explicitly mentioned in a similar text from Akmoneia, rather than to any specific rules of the local Jewish community.71 With the civic communities of the region we are on firmer ground, at least in some respects: that there were local laws predating the arrival of Romans is self-evident, even though their content remains unknown. A grant of local laws holds a prominent place in the letter of Eumenes II granting city status to Toriaion, in what was to become the assize district of Philomelion, one of the most important texts for understanding what it meant to obtain polis status.72 The complex procedure envisaged by the Attalid king for the approval of the new city’s laws suggests, however, that a certain integration of the region into the wider Hellenistic legal milieu had taken place even before the arrival of Romans. It is accordingly not very clear to what extent Romans had to deal with local ethnic peculiarities (as opposed to simply ‘non-Roman institutions’), even in the early years of the province. At any rate, the rules inherited from the Hellenistic period seem to have showed astonishing resilience, and Romans were still showing interest in the land registers of the royal period in the reign of Hadrian. In a letter to Titus Avidius Quietus (proconsul of Asia in AD 125/6) concerning an ongoing investigation into the lands of the temple of Zeus at Aizanoi, Hadrian provided the following instructions: If it is not clear how large are the portions called klēroi, into which the land dedicated to Juppiter of Aizanoi was divided by the kings, it is best, as you also believe, that a mean should be observed, corresponding neither to the largest nor to the smallest of the klēroi in neighbouring cities.73 71 72 73 Fines at Hierapolis: Ameling 2004: nos. 205–6. ‘Law of the Jews’ at Apameia (τὸν νόμον οἶδεν [τ]ῶν Εἰουδέων): Ameling 2004: no. 179, l. 3, cf. Ramsay 1914: 172; Trebilco 1991: 100. ‘The curses written in the book of Deuteronomy’ (αἱ ἀραὶ | ἡ γεγραμμέναι ἐν τῷ Δευτερο|νομίῳ): Ameling 2004: no. 173, A.15–17; cf. Robert, Hellenica X 249–51. I.Sultan Dağı 393 = ISE III 196, lines 10, 27–28. See further on this document Schuler 1999; Virgilio 2001; Bencivenni 2003: 333–56; Savalli-Lestrade 2005. Si in quantas particulas quos cleros appellant ager Aezanen|si Ioui dicatus a regibus diuisu[s sit] non apparet optimum est, |sicut tu quoque existimas [mo](d)um qui in uicinis ciuitatibus | clerorum nec maximus nec minimus est obseruari (MAMA IX P2, ll. 3–6, tr. B. Levick and S. Mitchell); cf. MAMA IX 8–10 for surviving boundary stones. The fullest discussion remains Laffi 1971; see also Wörrle 2009: 426–30; Thonemann, Chapter 1 above. Pace Laffi, I follow Levick and Mitchell, MAMA IX, xli, in their understanding of the phrase, which makes the kings responsible for the size of the klēroi. For Roman authorities settling land disputes in Phrygia, cf. the checklist in Campbell 2000: 462. Law in Roman Phrygia: rules and jurisdictions The facts that land measurements (and in all likelihood taxation units) established under the Attalids still mattered for practical purposes in this late period; that similar practices of land division were still alive in Phrygian cities, and not only on sacred land; and that the proconsul was supposed to be guided by local practice rather than any general considerations, all have obvious wider implications for the fate of local law under the Roman Empire. Whatever the state of local judicial autonomy by that time, and despite the growing need to get formal training in (probably Roman) law, we have here a clear example of Roman judicial practice still based, in the famous words of Trajan to Pliny, on the principle that it is always ‘safest to follow the law of each community’.74 While we should not exaggerate the extent to which a Roman governor would actually bother to do so in each particular case, this attitude must have been sufficiently widespread that Hadrian and Quietus could still consider it quite normal to consult local customs in the 120s. The evidence, however, is scarce, which does not come as a surprise in a region from which no papyri survive: the more mundane legal transactions would only rarely be inscribed on stone. The main area in which the survival of local rules is attested in the epigraphic record is that of manumissions, where the practice of making conveyances, katagraphai, which rendered slaves (or even freeborn children) in formal terms the property of the god, is well attested by inscriptions from the temple of Apollo Lairbenos.75 While similar practices are widely attested in the Hellenistic world, from Macedon to Susiane, several local peculiarities have been traced in these texts, and it is a definite possibility that we are dealing with a survival of a distinctly Anatolian institution (perhaps even ‘Phrygian’) into the Roman period. It may not be unconnected that in Phrygia, as elsewhere in Asia Minor, the status of threptoi, ‘foundlings’ or ‘home-grown slaves’ is well attested in inscriptions.76 While the term threptos (which could be applied both to slaves and to free persons, in the Roman understanding of those words) may strictly have been ‘social rather than legal’, nonetheless Pliny the Younger had to work hard to grasp its legal implications in Bithynia, and Roman proconsuls of Asia could well have been presented with the same difficulties in the lawsuits which came before them.77 74 75 76 77 Plin. Ep. 10.113. For documents and discussions, Ricl 1995b; 2001 (important for Macedonian parallels); Ritti, Şimşek and Yıldız 2000. For the main discussions, Cameron 1939; Nani 1943–4; Ricl 2009 (esp. p. 109 for possible connections with Phrygian katagraphai); and, for Phrygia in particular, Levick and Mitchell, MAMA IX, lxxiv–lxxvi; Thonemann, Chapter 6 above. Plin. Ep. 10.65; quotation from Sherwin-White 1966: 650. 165 166 georgy kantor This, however, points to further problems. First, to what extent was the definition of local rules driven by the Roman desire to have a clear set of standards to apply in court (as was the case, for example, with local law in British India)?78 Would, for example, Quietus’ investigation into the common size of the klēroi, or a putative enquiry into the rights of fosterers over threptoi, create a ‘provincial’ rule distinct from and dissimilar to any of the original local rules? Second, landed property and personal statuses are highly conservative areas of law, and it is impossible to extrapolate from these spheres into the much more flexible (and ‘internationalized ’) sphere of the law of contract, particularly once Roman citizens (so prominent at Apameia) had become a substantial presence in the region (see Thonemann, Chapter 1 above).79 The earliest surviving testamentary disposition from this region, a chapter from the last will of a freedman of Hadrian who had left a bequest to his home city of Nakoleia, shows both how the spread of Roman citizenship could bring Roman law with it and how its flexibility in certain areas allowed Greek institutions to operate within its framework. A chapter from the testament of Publius Aelius Onesimos, freedman of Augustus. To the community of Nakoleia, my beloved motherland, although I owe it as much as possible, I leave, due to the mediocrity of my modest means, two hundred thousand sesterces, so that they may be lent at interest by the decision of Cornelius Hyginus and Cornelius Hesychius, and the interest for the first three years be spent on purchasing grain in order that a corn dole can be arranged each year. And after three years have passed it is my wish that the interest on all this money be divided among my fellow-citizens, after a check of the citizen rolls has been made, on the happiest day when our lord Trajan Hadrian was born.80 78 79 80 For British India, compare Cohn 1989. For the law of contract, note a funerary foundation of Marcus Aurelius Aigillos from Hierapolis, generating 36 per cent p.a., perhaps invested as a maritime loan: SEG 54, 1323. Kaput ex testamento P. A.eli On.esi.mi Aug(usti) lib.(erti) | ciuitati Nacolensium patriae. meae amantissimae quamuis pl.[u]|rimum debeam pr.o mediocritate tamen peculioli mei dari uolo | H . S. CC n(ummum) ea condicione ut.i arbitratu Corne..l.i [Hyg]ini et Corneli [He]|s.yci faeneretur ea pecunia et ex us.uris qu.[od conf]ectum fuerit pr.[o]|ximo trie.nni.o in si.tonico. tribuant ut q.[uo]d.q.u.od annis possit e[o] |frumen.tum comp.arari et per.act.o tr..ie.n.n.io uolo eius omnis p.e.|cunia.e. usuras quodquo.d ann.is ciuibus. meis diuidi [p]olit.o.gra.p[h(ia)] | .fa.cta die .felic.issi.mo nat.ali domini n(ostri) Traiani Hadriani (ILS 7196; MAMA V 202; FIRA III 53, lines 1–9: Nakoleia, reign of Hadrian). Understood as a fideicommissum by Amelotti 1966: 36, no. 13; cf. further Kehoe 1997: 86–7. On politographia, Kiessling 1952. For fideicommissa, Buckland 1963: 353–9; Frier and McGinn 2004: 404–12. On leaving money to municipal communities in Roman law, see D. Johnston 1985. A Late Republican dispute over the inheritance of a certain Valeria (Cic. Flacc. 84–9) was resolved entirely under the rather archaic rules of Roman testamentary and marriage law, even though her husband, Sestullius Andro from Akmoneia, might have been a freedman of local origin: Marshall 1975; Mitchell 1979. Law in Roman Phrygia: rules and jurisdictions As has been shown by Amelotti, this is a good example of a fideicommissum, a form of testamentary disposition allowed by Roman Imperial law for leaving property under conditions not allowed by strict rules of traditional testamentary law. In this case, problems would arise from the fact of leaving money to a community, rather than to named individuals, and from the complex conditions attached to the bequest; it is notable that Onesimos is careful to leave Roman citizens as executors and trustees. On the other hand, in spite of being an Imperial freedman, the testator is a citizen of Nakoleia and takes pride in it (compare the example of Arruntius Aciamus, above), and at least one of the institutions he refers to is distinctly Greek, that of the ‘check of citizen rolls’ (politographia). The evidence is insufficient, however, to trace in detail how this practical mix of institutions evolved, and exactly how Roman law came to take the place of local customs. When Constantine made a grant of city status to the village of Orkistos (where in AD 237 a certain Varius Aurelius Marcus had made a bequest in many ways similar to that of Aelius Onesimos), it is striking that no reference to local laws was made.81 Conclusion This chapter has aimed more at raising new questions than at providing definite answers. The evidence is limited and often tantalizingly fragmentary; the apparently almost totally static assize system, and the continued Roman interest in Hellenistic royal enactments as late as the second century AD, could well conceal substantial developments, as the development of professional legal training suggests. The sources hint at possible tensions between integration in wider networks of jurisdiction and respect for local Phrygian identities, between interest in Hellenistic enactments and attempts to define local customs in ways comprehensible for Romans. New evidence may yet change our understanding of how these tensions were resolved, and give us a better idea of the chronology of legal and institutional developments in the region. 81 Varius Aurelius Marcus: Buckler 1937. Grant of city status: MAMA VII 305, with Chastagnol 1981. 167