Urban Life and Local Politics in Roman Bithynia

URBAN LIFE AND LOCAL POLITICS
IN ROMAN BITHYNIA
THE SMALL WORLD OF DION CHRYSOSTOMOS

BLACK SEA STUDIES
THE DANISH NATIONAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION’S

CENTRE FOR BLACK SEA STUDIES
URBAN LIFE AND
LOCAL POLITICS
IN ROMAN BITHYNIA
the small world of dion chrysostomos
by
Tønnes Bekker-Nielsen
AARHUS UNIVERSITY PRESS a

URBAN LIFE AND LOCAL POLITICS
IN ROMAN BITHYNIA
© Aarhus University Press 2008

Language revision by Mary Waters Lund
Cover design by Lotte Bruun Rasmussen
Large photo: Fig. 5. Nikaia seen from the East (author’s photo).
Insert: Fig. 31. Inscription from Iznik Museum (author’s photo).
Printed in Denmark by Narayana Press, Gylling
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Preface
My first meeting with Dion Chrysostomos took place on a rainy winter’s

evening in the Classics Library of the University of Bergen. While searching
for another text, I came across one of Dion’s municipal speeches. This chance
encounter led to a deeper interest in this small-town politician. Some years
later, the opportunity for a closer study of Dion and his urban environment
presented itself as part of a research project on “Greeks under the Roman
Empire” under the auspices of the Danish National Research Foundation’s
Centre for Black Sea Studies.
Within the Centre for Black Sea Studies, I had the good fortune to work
with Jesper Majbom Madsen as supervisor of his Ph.D. thesis, soon to be
published as Eager to be Roman (Duckworth, 2008). Together, we organized a
workshop on Rome and the Black Sea Region (the proceedings of which were
published in 2006 as volume 5 of “Black Sea Studies”) and another about Dion
himself (published in Danish as Dion af Prusa: En græsk intellektuel mellem Rom
og Sortehavet, 2007).
I am also grateful for the chance to discuss different aspects of Bithynian
life under the Roman Empire with other friends and colleagues, especially Pia
Guldager Bilde, Jesper Carlsen, Thomas Corsten, George Hinge, Marit Jensen,
Jørgen Christian Meyer, Eckart Olshausen, Rita Rattenborg, Helle Sejersen,
Christian Winkle and Greg Woolf, and with students following courses on
Roman Bithynia at the University of Southern Denmark, Esbjerg (2004) and
the University of Stuttgart (2007). Thanks are also due to the staff of Konuralp
and greater Izmit municipalities, and of the National Archaeological Museum,
Istanbul as well as the municipal archaeological museums of Bursa, Izmit,
Iznik and Konuralp for their assistance.
Kolding, January 2008 Tønnes Bekker-Nielsen

Contents
Preface 5
List of Illustrations 11
1. Introduction 13
Hybris and stasis 13
Urban rivalries 15
Formal and informal politics 16
A tale of three cities 18
2. Before the Romans 21

Founding fathers 21
Kings and emperors 26
3. Windows on the Past 31

Townscapes and landscapes 31
Literary sources 33
History 33
Letters 34
Speeches 37
Legal texts 39
Inscriptions 40
Coins 41
4. The Urban Environment 45

Civic self-perceptions 45
Titles and status 47
City plan and architecture 49
Defenses 51
5. Political Institutions 61
The nature of Roman Law 61
Roman annexation and the Lex Pompeia 62
Emperor and senate 64
Civic self-government 66
8 Urban Life and Local Politics in Roman Bithynia
Liturgies 69
Urban revenues and finances 70
City magistracies 73
The archons 73
The agonothete 74
The agoranomos 75
Advocates, delegates and ambassadors 77
Censors 77
The grammateus and minor officials 78
The gerousia 79
The gymnasion 80
The local level 80
Regional organisation: the koinon 82
Archiereus and Bithyniarch 83
Koinon and governor 86
6. The Political Class 97

Ethnic composition 97
Roman citizenship 99
Social stratification 100
The local level 100
Some Bithynian careers at the local level 101
The urban level 101
Some Bithynian careers at the urban level 103
The regional level 104
Some Bithynian careers at the regional level 105
The Domitii of Prusias ad Hypium 107
The imperial level 108
Some Bithynian careers at the imperial level 108
The Cassii of Nikaia 109
7. A Political Biography: Dion Chrysostomos 119

Family background 119
From imperial favour to exile 120
Return 122
Success abroad 124
Opposition at home 125
Homonoia with Apameia 127
Stasis and katharsis at Prusa 130
Reconciliation 131
Flavius Archippos 133
Resignation and utopianism 136
Contents 9
8. The Bithynian Cities under the Later Empire 147

Antonines and Severans 147
Nikomedia’s imperial century 150
Change and crisis in third century Bithynia 155
Reorganisation, Christianity and a new imperial capital 159
9. Conclusions: Urban Life and Local Politics 165

Honour 165
Giving and receiving 166
A caste society? 168
A compartmentalized agôn 169
Status 170
The koinon 171
Mutual recognition 172
Politics and the polis 173
Appendix: The Dates of Dion’s Municipal Orations 177
Abbreviations 181
Bibliography 183
INDICES 197
List of Illustrations
1. Map of Roman Bithynia (Inger Bjerg Poulsen) 18

2a. Nikaian bronze coin showing the city’s founder, Dionysos, returning from India
in an elephant quadriga (Tom Vossen) 23
2b. Prusan bronze coin showing “Prusias, the founder of Prusa” (American
Numismatic Society) 23
3a. Nikomedian bronze coin of the reign of Commodus (Gorny & Mosch, Giessener
Münzhandlung) 24
3b. Nikomedian bronze coin of Philip the Arab, showing a square-rigged ship
(Alexandre de Barros collection) 24
4. The southern wall of Prusa (author’s photo) 25
5. Nikaia seen from the east (author’s photo) 32
6. Detail of the Tabula Peutingeriana (Staatsbibliothek, Vienna) 33
7a. Bronze coin of the Bithynian koinon, struck under Hadrian (Münzen und Medaillen
Deutschland) 42
7b. Nikomedian bronze coin of Valerian, Gallienus and Valerian II (Classical
Numismatic Group) 42
8. Map of Nikaia (Inger Bjerg Poulsen) 49
9. Remains of the southern wall of Nikomedia’s citadel in the Medrese Sokak
(author’s photo) 50
10. The course of the late antique east wall (author’s photo) 50
11. Map of Nikomedia (Inger Bjerg Poulsen) 52
12. Map of Prusa (Inger Bjerg Poulsen) 53
13. “Gate 6” may be a remnant of Nikaia’s Hellenistic defense perimeter (author’s
photo) 54
14. A negative impression of the Hadrianic walls of Nikaia (author’s photo) 54
15. North (Istanbul) gate of Nikaia seen from the inside (Jesper Majbom
Madsen) 56
16. Elevation of the North (Istanbul) gate of Nikaia (Dalman, Fick & Schneider
1938) 57
17. The east (Lefke) gate of Nikaia, seen from the outside (author’s photo) 63
18. The sarcophagus of Aurelius Vernicianus and his wife Markiane. Izmit museum
19. Inscription honouring the emperor Trajan, dedicated by the city secretary (gram-
mateus) T. Flavius Silôn. Bursa Museum (author’s photo) 104
20. Unfinished inscription, now in the garden of Bursa Museum (author’s
photo) 106
21. Inscription in honour of Marcus Domitius Paulianus Falco in the ancient theatre
of Konuralp (author’s photo) 107
22. The obelisk-like monument of the Nikaian notable Cassius Philiskos (author’s
photo) 110
23. Detail of the monument, showing recesses in the side of the vertical stone face
24. Inscription on the rear face of the monument giving the name, age and filiation
of Cassius Philiskos (author’s photo) 111
25. The inscription over the east (Lefke) gate of Nikaia. At the end of the second line,
the name of Cassius Chrestos in the genitive (author’s photo) 113
26. The sarcophagus of C. Cassius Chrestos in the garden of Iznik Museum (author’s
photo) 113
27. Seated statue of a philosopher, Bursa museum (author’s photo) 123
28. Prusan notable of the Roman period. Bursa museum (author’s photo) 129
29. The theatre of Nikaia (Jesper Majbom Madsen) 137
30. Sesterce from the mint of Rome. The reverse shows the tychê of the city kneeling
before the emperor Hadrian, restitutor Nicomediae (Leu Numismatik AG) 148
31. The biography of Flavius Severianus Asklepiodotos, a rich notable of Nikaia in
the early third century. Iznik Museum (author’s photo) 153
32. Despite later reconstructions and repair work, the still standing third-century
walls of Nikaia give a good impression of the defences of a late Roman city
33. The south gate of Nikaia (author’s photo) 158
34a. Nikaian coin of Gallienus (AD 253‑268) showing the new walls of Nikaia, with
large towers flanking the gates (Numismatik Lanz, Munich) 159
34b. Nikaian coin from the brief reign of Macrianus (AD 260‑261) showing a similar
bird’s eye view of Nikaia (Classical Numismatic Group) 159
35. Justinian’s bridge west of Nikaia (Jesper Majbom Madsen) 161
1. Introduction
The ancient world as we know it would be unthinkable without the city. The
world of classical Greece was a world of city-states; the Roman Empire was
an empire of cities. From the fourth century BC onwards, most cities were no
longer sovereign, self-governing poleis, but they were still governing on behalf
of their Hellenistic or Roman rulers. The administrative functions of the city
and the readiness of its elite to participate in its administration were crucial
to the success of, and crucial to our understanding of, the Roman imperial
project.
Hybris and stasis

Aristotle famously defined man as a politikon zôon,1 sometimes translated as
“a political animal” and sometimes as “a creature that lives in cities”. The
exact meaning lies somewhere between the two: man is not “political” in the
modern sense of the English word, but neither is he merely a city-dweller. It
would be clumsier, but perhaps more precise to translate politikon zôon as “a
being that participates in a city”. To our eyes, ancient Greek cities were char-
acterised by a high degree of citizen participation in the political process, not
only because it was perceived as the duty of an adult male citizen, but also
because it provided an opportunity for public display of positive personal
qualities.
For the majority of the male citizens, a large part of the day was spent in
public spaces: the street, the agora, the gymnasium, and a correspondingly
smaller part within the confines of the nuclear family, the dwelling or the
workplace. The public nature of the social environment favoured the cre-
ation of an agonistic urban society where the place of the individual within
the group and within the citizen body was continually being defined and re-
defined through ties of family, friendship, loyalty, patronage and clientage,
and where visible personal qualities (honour, “face”, bearing, speech, educa-
tion) were very important, tangible but impersonal status markers (wealth,
possessions) less important. As the Book of Proverbs expresses it: “a good
name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver
or gold”.2
The social environment of a Greek city thus placed the male individual in a
sink-or-swim situation: his status or “honour” had to be displayed on a regu-
lar basis, marking his place within the social hierarchy of the community and
enabling him to establish advantageous long-term relationships of patronage,

clientage, friendship or marriage. On the other hand, the city was not a social
jungle where one animal ate another: the agôn took place within a restraining
framework of written and unwritten rules, ensuring that conflicts rarely got
out of hand. Two central concepts in this connection are hybris and stasis.
The familiar meaning of hybris is “intolerable arrogance” but in a wider
sense, hybris encompasses violent or anti-social behaviour in general. Sailing
off to explore the land of the Cyclopes, Odysseus desires to know “what man-
ner of men live there, whether they are arrogant men (hybristai) that do not
have laws, or kind to strangers (philoxenoi) and god-fearing in their hearts”.3
The form of life that he finds there is the exact antithesis of the civilized
urban lifestyle: the Cyclops lives alone in his cave, follows no laws and does
not fear the gods. As if to underline his disregard for Greek norms of social
behaviour, which emphasize hospitality to strangers, the Cyclops not only
treats his guests badly; he eats them.
Arrogant and self-gratifying behaviour transgressing established norms of
social behaviour could not be tolerated within the polis, since it threatened the
social cohesion and solidarity of the community, which was vital for survival
in a conflict with other poleis. Another threat was stasis, disruptive conflict
within the community, which could take the form of extreme factionalism or
actual political violence. In the Politics, the clinching argument of Aristotle in
favour of his “middle” constitution is that it is “free from stasis” (astasiaskos)4
and according to the Memorabilia of Xenophon, Sokrates defined the “good”
citizen as one who “puts an end to stasis”.5
The social structure of republican Rome had a good deal in common with
contemporary Greek cities, and Romans shared the Greek horror of civic vio-
lence. At an early stage, the Republic adopted the Etruscan fasces as an em-
blem of public office, symbolic of the magistrate’s authority to impose order
and punish transgressors with beating (the rods) or death (the axe). Such
a concentration of power in the hands of the state’s leaders ensured stabil-
ity – but it could be a terrible weapon in the wrong hands. So, firstly, power
was always held jointly by two or more magistrates, except in emergencies;
secondly, access to the magistracies was restricted to the right sort of people,
originally members of certain (“patrician”) families, later those who met a
property qualification, the census.6 There might be a census threshold for en-
tering the urban council of an Italian town (the ordo decurionum), there was a
higher one for the equestrian order and a still higher one for the senate, the
real locus of power in republican Rome. The census was not the only social
dividing line, however, and within the Roman senate a distinction between
members of established consular families and more recent arrivals (homines
novi) lingered well into the early Empire.
For all its admirable qualities – and despite the admiration lavished on it by
generations of classical scholars – the ancient urban community was a fragile
social structure, as its members were well aware. Internal tensions within the
Introduction 15
community were kept in check, after a fashion, by laws and unwritten codes
to restrain individualistic behaviour going beyond the bounds of the agôn and
threatening the cohesion, hence the survival, of the community. To modern
eyes, some of these restrictions may seem peculiar and sometimes comical,
for instance, the Athenian institution of ostracism, the Spartan prohibition on
embellishing one’s front door7 or Trajan’s refusal to permit a fire brigade in
Nikomedia because the city was “plagued by political factionalism” (factioni-
bus vexata).8 But the fear of civil violence among the many or of oppression by
the few was real enough, and well founded. Friendly competition and social
rivalry within the agôn could easily get out of control and once public order
had broken down, it was difficult to restore.
Urban rivalries
The agôn of man and his neighbours in the agora and other public spaces was
paralleled at the collective level, where cities battled to maintain and reinforce
their position vis-à-vis their neigbouring communities. Though the stakes were
essentially the same, the arena was different. The province was no face-to-
face environment: behaviour and actions counted for less, titles and tangible
status markers for more. To enjoy the special favour of the ruler, the Roman
governor or the emperor himself was important. So was the status of a city
within the formal administrative hierarchy of the province. Monuments and
great public buildings, too, played their role, but perhaps less for their own
value as for the means to an end: the maintenance of status in the eyes of the
ruling power. In fact, it is striking how often the city’s place within the agôn
appears defined by its relation to the ruling power and its representatives.
The rhetor Dion ridicules his fellow Prusans for wanting to preserve an old
smithy whose dilapidated condition brings shame on the community on the
occasion of the governor’s visit, while his opponents claim that Dion has not
done enough to win the emperor’s favour for Prusa, which in that respect is
far behind Smyrna.9 Among the visible expressions of the city’s high standing
with the Roman authorities were honorific titles, above all that of mêtropolis
and “first city within the province”. The sometimes extreme nature of the
urban agôn is illustrated by the persistent rivalry between Nikomedia and
Nikaia, continually competing for titles and honours (below, p. 47-48).
The fields of religion and education provided complementary arenas for
the urban agôn. In 29 BC, Nikaia won for herself the imperial cult of the “Ro-
mans” in the province, while Nikomedia became home to that of the pere
grines, i.e. the koinon. In the mid-fourth century AD, Libanios was enticed
away from Nikaia by the offer of a teaching post in Nikomedia. At the council
of Chalkedon in 451, the bemused delegates spent a whole day listening to
bishop Eunomios of Nikomedia and his colleague, Anastasios of Nikaia, dis-
puting the ecclesiastical jurisdiction over the parish of Basilinopolis.10
To some degree, Roman domination acted as a stabilising factor. Jealousy
and enmity between cities could not be eliminated and indeed might be ex-
ploited in the interests of Rome, but at least they could be restrained. Further,
the provincial law of Pompey the Great established a minimum age and a
census threshold for the city councils, ensuring that urban politics would
henceforth be dominated by adult property-owners, the “middle” class so
dear to the theories of Aristotle. As we shall see, the census also had the useful
side-effect of “compartmentalizing” the political arena and putting a brake
on social mobility, and thus on conflict potential, within the city.
Formal and informal politics

We know a good deal about formal political life in ancient cities: the names
of their leading magistrates as preserved in honorific and funerary inscrip-
tions; visits by or delegations to the emperor; famous sons and daughters
who reached high imperial positions; important decisions of their councils
that were inscribed on stone for posterity. But we know very little about the
day-to-day, face-to-face relationships and conflicts, the undercurrent of urban
life. A moment’s reflection will make it clear that the formal, visible aspect of
urban politics is really the tip of a much larger iceberg, most of which remains
invisible to our eyes.
In a city of several thousand inhabitants, not everyone would know ev-
eryone else; but the most prominent citizens, those leading in the social agôn
and the race for magistracies and places on the city council, would be known
to most of their fellow citizens. Since a great part of their social and politi-
cal interaction took place in public spaces such as streets and squares, their
actions and relations to each other would also be known to a wide circle.
The street provided a stage for displaying “correct” behaviour. On the other
hand, it was also a fertile environment for rumours and stories that could
rapidly erode the individual’s position. Because the ancient world assumed
that personal qualities were inbred rather than acquired, the personality of a
candidate was considered as important as his formal qualifications, and at-
tacks on an opponent’s character was an effective “informal” tactic. The early
imperial historians provide many examples of how rumour and denunciation
were deployed in the fight for social and political status, and the Apocolocyn-
tosis of Seneca an impression of the innuendo and half-truths circulating in
the imperial capital.
Taking Suetonius, Tacitus and Seneca as our sources for early imperial
slander, the most common topics seem to be sex and drinking habits. As in
other societies, a double standard applied in sexual matters; behaviour that
would generally be tolerated or ignored might on occasion be denounced
and punished. Stories about the heavy drinking of Roman magistrates and
emperors were recorded by later writers.11 No doubt similar stories were cir-
culating in the smaller cities, viz. the Pompeiian graffiti stating that “the late
drinkers support candidate so-and-so”.12
Introduction 17
Another way to undermine a person’s credibility is to suggest that he is

overbearing, quick to anger and has little patience with others, implying at
once arrogance and lack of self-control – in one word, hybris. We get a glimpse
of this type of innuendo in a letter from Cicero to his younger brother Quintus,
who held the governorship of Asia from 61 to 59 BC. At the commencement
of Quintus’ third term as governor, Marcus sends him a long letter of advice,
warning Quintus that rumours about his conduct as governor are circulating
in Rome. According to Marcus, the detractors of Quintus have focused on his
iracundia, which Marcus acknowledges as a particularly deplorable weakness
in one who exercises summum imperium, the almost unlimited authority of a
governor. He goes on to give examples of Quintus’ behaviour which are pre-
sumably drawn from rumours circulating in the capital.13
From sources such as these, we know how informal political tactics, as well
as personal vanity, petty rivalries, graft and corruption played a role in the
political process at Rome. We have no reason to suppose that the hundreds
and thousands of provincial urbes were so very different; the difference is that
for most of these, we have no evidence to work from.
There are a few places, however, where the political process at the per-
sonal level can be glimpsed. One is Oxyrhynchus (el-Bahnasa) in Egypt, where
verbatim records of council debates of the third to fifth century have been
preserved.14 Another is Pompeii, where the eruption of AD 79 has preserved
electoral dipinti, political graffiti and other ephemera.15 A third is Bithynia,
where we are fortunate to possess a unique collection of municipal speeches
by the philosopher-politician Dion Chrysostomos and a contemporary collec-
tion of letters to and from the provincial governor, Pliny the younger. These
sources provide unique insights into the workings of local politics and ad-
ministration at the personal and informal level.
Dion often needed to defend himself against the stories put about by his
opponents. As a young man in Prusa, he faced charges of grain hoarding and
lack of public spirit. In the early post-exilic period, the rumours centred on his
relationship with the emperor: Dion was not the close friend that he claimed,
he had mishandled an embassy to Rome, he had failed to win Prusa the con-
cessions that Trajan granted Smyrna, etc. – an ingenious angle of attack, since
it concerned events in far-off Rome that could not be verified or disproved,
leaving Dion defenseless. Later, he was accused of tyrannical or demagogical
behaviour, and negative rumours were spread about his administration of
public projects. He was also taken to task for his too close relationship with
the Roman governor and seems to have been suspected of atheism.16
Perhaps because of the pedestrian nature of their subject matter, the mu-
nicipal speeches of Dion Chrysostomos have not attracted a great deal of
scholarly attention; most students of Dion – with the exception of C.P. Jones
(1978) and M. Cuvigny (1994) – have directed their attention to other parts of
his oeuvre. In this book, however, we will focus on Dion the local politician and
on the political, intellectual and social urban environment of Roman Bithynia.
Fig. 1. Map of Roman Bithynia (Inger Bjerg Poulsen)
To set Dion and his city within their proper historical and geographical con-
text, the narrative will commence with the foundation of the three cities that
formed the background to Dion’s career.
A tale of three cities

Nikomedia, Nikaia and Prusa were important cities in northwestern Asia
Minor, located within a hundred Roman miles of Byzantion – later to be-
come the imperial capital of Constantinople – and of each other. Together,
they commanded the major highways from Europe into Asia Minor and the
Levant. As Hellenistic foundations, they share many common characteristics,
and from the Hellenistic period onwards, their histories were intertwined in
changing relationships of hegemony and subordination, friendly competi-
tion, fierce rivalry or obsessive enmity. Each of them vied for the leading
position in their region, and in turn, each of them attained it. Nikaia was the
oldest city and the first mêtropolis of Roman Bithynia. Later it was eclipsed
by Nikomedia, which rose to be an imperial residence under the Tetrarchy.
Introduction 19
A thousand years later, Prusa, too, became an imperial capital and the resi-
dence of the Ottoman sultan.
During the twentieth century, Prusa and Nikomedia have shared in the
industrial growth that has characterized the Marmara region. Whereas a large
part of the 34,000 inhabitants of modern Nikaia (Iznik) still nestle within its
late Roman walls, Prusa (Bursa) has grown to over a million inhabitants,
Nikomedia (Izmit/Kocaeli) to some 300,000.
In the scholarly literature and tourist itineraries, on the other hand, little
Nikaia looms far larger than her two sister cities. The last decade has seen
two monographs on the history of Nikaia (Foss 1996, P. Guinea Diaz 1997)
and it is to Nikaia that visitors go for a visual impression of a Roman city,
whereas the remains of ancient Nikomedia and Prusa are covered by modern
construction. Though some archaeological evidence has come to light acci-
dentally and in the course of rescue excavations, we have no detailed overall
picture of these two cities, their topography and their monuments as we do
in the case of Nikaia. This does not preclude writing a history of their urban
life and development, it merely means that other types of sources and differ-
ent approaches are required.
Notes
1 Pol. 1253a1.
2 Proverbs 22.1.
3 Odyssey 9.174‑176.
4 Pol. 1296a7.
5 Mem. 4.6.14.
6 Even Sallust (Bell.Jug. 86), no admirer of the Roman nobility, echoes a familiar
Roman prejudice when writing that Marius recruited proletarians into the army
due to inopia bonorum, literally “a shortage of good ones” (i.e., of property-
owners).
7 Plutarch, Lyk. 13.5; Link 2000, 77‑80.
8 Pliny, Ep. 10.34.
9 Or. 40.9; 40.13.
10 Foss 1996, 12‑13.
11 Seneca, Ep. ad Lucilium, 83.12‑14; Suetonius, Tib. 42; Titus 7.
12 Mouritsen 1988, 67.
13 Cicero, Ad Q.F. 1.1.37‑38; cf. Braund 1998, 17‑18. In a more positive vein, Pliny (Ep.
9.5) claims to have heard how well his friend Calestrius Tiro is doing as governor
of Baetica; but this may merely be a literary formula to open the letter.
14 Coles 1966; Bowman 1971. Some of the later records (from the third century
onwards) appear to be verbatim renderings of speeches in the council, probably
taken down by a shorthand writer as they were delivered.
15 Mouritsen 1988.
16 Dion, Or. 43.11, but cf. Vielmetti 1941, 98. In Vielmetti’s view, the charge of athe-
ism has no substance but is introduced by Dion to underscore the parallelization
of himself with Sokrates in 43.10 and 43.12. Dion evidently intended to answer
the charge in 43.13ff, but this part of his oration is not preserved.
2. Before the Romans
Founding fathers
Foundation myths or histories were an important element of Greek urban
identity. The oldest cities claimed to find their founders among the gods
or heroes of mythology, often among those who fought at Troy. Those that
were products of the great period of Greek colonization focused their origin-
identity on the mother city, literally the mêtropolis; for instance, many Greek
settlements along the Black Sea coast claimed a Milesian origin. The more
recent foundations identified their founder as an historical person, often as
not giving his own name to the city.
The Hellenistic period was a high season for the foundation of cities. It
opened with Alexander the Great, who founded dozens of Alexandrias along
his marching route to the east; it closed with the naval victory of Octavian
in 31 BC, celebrated by the refoundation of Actium as Nikopolis, “the city of
victory”.
The city known to antiquity as Nikaia and to present-day Turks as Iznik
was founded in 311 BC by one of Alexander’s generals and successors, Anti-
gonos Monophtalmos (“the one-eyed”). It was named Antigoneia to preserve
the memory of its founder – not, as it turned out, for very long: by 301 BC
it had been captured by another of Alexander’s generals, Lysimachos, who
renamed it Nikaia after his queen.1
Bithynia was one of the many minor kingdoms that emerged from the
breakup of Alexander’s empire. A Bithynian noble, Zipoites, declared himself
king and inaugurated a new royal era.2 In 280, he fell in battle and was suc-
ceeded by his son, Nikomedes I. Like his father, the new king was forced to
devote most of his energy to wars and dynastic conflicts in an environment
of recurrent warfare and constantly shifting alliances. By the 260’s, his foreign
policy had proved successful and his dynastic position had been secured by
the death of his brothers. In 264 BC, Nikomedes founded a new royal capital
bearing his name at the head of what we now know as the gulf of Izmit, easily
reached by land or sea from all parts of his kingdom. Such a good position
had not gone unnoticed or unexploited, and Nikomedia was not created on
virgin soil but through a fusion – synoikism – of existing settlements.3
Its name suggests that the third great city of Bithynia, Prusa, was founded
by a Prusias – as claimed by three ancient writers (Strabon, Arrian of Niko-
media and Stephen of Byzantion)4 and on a coin of the late second century
AD bearing the legend “Prusias the founder (ktistês) of Prusa” (fig. 2).5 But
who was he? According to Strabon’s Geography, the city was “a foundation
of Prusias who fought against Kroisos”, echoed by Stephen’s identification:
“Prusias who fought against Kyros”. According to a fragment of Arrian, Prusa
was founded by king Prusias, grandson of Nikomedes.
The Natural History of Pliny the Elder names Hannibal as the founder of
Prusa6 – thus indirectly supporting the claim of Arrian. Hannibal left Carthage
in 195 BC and sought refuge with Antiochos III. When the Romans asked An-
tiochos to hand over Hannibal, the Carthaginian fled to Armenia and from
there to Bithynia, where he served Prusias I as a naval commander in 188‑183
BC. He had previously assisted king Artaxias of Armenia in laying out a new
city, Artaxata,7 and may well have advised the Bithynian king on the founding
of Prusa. Fearing that Prusias would hand him over to the Romans, Hannibal
took his own life in 183 BC.
Strabon, on the other hand, identifies Prusa’s founder as “Prusias who
fought against Kroisos” which would imply a foundation date in the sixth
century BC, but there is no archaeological or epigraphic evidence for such an
early date. One way out of this problem is to assume a lacuna in Strabon’s
text after “Prusias”, in which case the king who fought Kroisos (or Kyros, as
Stephen of Byzantion has it, copying a corrupt version of Strabon) is an en-
tirely different person from the founder of Prusa.8
A more probable explanation is that Strabon was reproducing a popular
tradition about the origins of Prusa that was current in Asia Minor during his
own lifetime. There is little doubt that Prusa was founded by Prusias I, but the
historical identity of the founder may have been overlaid by an accretion of
legends about a protohistorical and semi-mythical origin. The notion that the
founder battled against Kroisos reflects a Prusan self-perception as a frontier
city, and the desire to make the city more respectable by moving its foundation
date back in time is easy to understand.9 A parallel process can be observed in
nearby Nikaia, where coins and inscriptions proudly identify the city’s found-
ers as Dionysos and Herakles;10 throughout the life span of the Nikaian mint,
coins were struck with the image of Dionysos as the ktistês of Nikaia (fig. 2).11
To Greek thinkers of the classical period, the city, hê polis, was also the
state, and in a wider sense, society. The founders of a new city could draw on
various treatises for advice. Most of these have been lost, but an impression of
their content can be gained from a passage in Aristotle’s Politics12 where the
practical problems of siting a city are briefly touched upon as prolegomena to
a wider discussion about the nature of human society and the relative merits
of different constitutions. Aristotle’s advice is worth quoting, not because
every later city-founder had a copy of the Politics at his elbow, but because
they may be taken to reflect prevalent ideas about “best practice” in city plan-
ning during the late Classical and early Hellenistic period.
According to Aristotle, the city should be located on sloping ground with
easy access “to the sea, the land and its territory”13 and a sufficient supply
Before the Romans 23
Fig. 2 Left: Nikaian bronze coin showing the city’s founder, Dionysos, returning from India
in an elephant quadriga. As an assertion of the city’s divine origin and seniority over the
other Bithynian cities, Dionysos appears on Nikaian coins from the first century right down
to the reign of Gallienus. RGMG 1.3 Nikaia 826 similis (Tom Vossen). Right: Fig. 2b.
Prusan bronze coin showing Geta on the obverse and on the reverse a figure identified as
“Prusias, the founder of Prusa”: RGMG 1.4 Prusa 116. (American Numismatic Society)
of good water.14 An eastward-facing slope is preferable, a northward orien-

tation acceptable.15 Aristotle discusses the location of the city in relation to
the sea at some length: the advantages of being able to transport goods from
afar by water are weighed against the corrupting influence of visiting trad-
ers and sailors, and he concludes that a city should have a harbour, but at a
little distance: not within the city itself yet close enough to be controlled and
defended.16 Concerning the city plan itself, Aristotle assumes as a matter of
course that it will be based on the familiar “Hippodamian” system of rectan-
gular plots divided by rectilinear streets.17 Walls are indispensable for safety
and desirable for the sake of appearance.18 The agora should be at the centre
of the city but conveniently located in relation to the gates, with the temples
and government buildings close by.19 That this is not idle speculation but
reflects contemporary town planning practice can be verified by comparing
plans of Hellenistic cities with the precepts of Aristotle.
In this respect, a closer look at the map of Nikaia (fig. 8, p. 49) is instruc-
tive. Even today, it is possible to discern some basic features of the city’s
original plan: the rectilinear main streets of the Hippodamian grid meeting
each other at right angles in the centre of the city; the four main gates; the
lake harbour located close by, but outside the walls; the Aya Sofya Camii
at the central intersection. Located by the edge of the lake, with good, level
farmland stretching along its shores, Nikaia had “easy access to the sea” – or
at least to water transport – “to the land and to its territory”. That territory
stretched far to the east, probably as far as the Sangarios river (mod. Sakarya).
Through it ran the southern of the two main routes from Thrace to Anatolia
and the Levant.
In terms of access, Nikomedia, founded half a century later, enjoyed an
even more advantageous position at the eastern extremity of the gulf of Izmit,
astride the northern route into central Anatolia, with secondary roads branch-
ing southward to Nikaia and northward to the shore of the Black Sea. We
Fig. 3. Left: Nikomedian bronze coin of the reign of Commodus. The reverse shows a war
galley in the city’s harbour, in the background the city’s two temples of the imperial cult
(cf. p. 47). RGMG 1.3 Nikaia 165 (Gorny & Mosch, Giessener Münzhandlung). Right:
Nikomedian bronze coin of Philip the Arab, showing a square-rigged merchant ship. RGMG
1.3 Nikaia 387 (Alexandre de Barros collection).
may take it for granted that the lower city was laid out on a grid plan with
the east-west highway as its baseline and some present street alignments may
preserve the imprint of the Hippodamian plan.20 It is not known whether the
reticular plan extended onto the slopes – perhaps not: according to Libanios,
the residential areas stretched up the hillside “like the branches of a cypress”21
which rather suggests an organic pattern adapted to the contours of the hills.
Libanios also catalogues the city’s magnificent buildings destroyed by the
earthquake of 358: “colonnades, fountains, squares, libraries, sanctuaries,
baths”.22 As at Nikaia, the harbour was located outside the walls, but close
to the city. Nikomedia was a major trading port whose ships ranged over the
Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean.23 That water transport played a large
role in the economy of the city and the self-perception of the Nikomedians is
evident from the recurrence of ships and other marine motifs on Nikomedian
coins24 (fig. 3) and from the project, proposed in the early second century AD,
to cut a canal from lake Sapanca to the sea.25
Turning to Prusa, we find a number of significant differences. There is
little evidence for synoikism, indicating that the founder had a free choice of
site. The one actually chosen would have met with the approval of Aristotle
insofar as it is located on the cool northward-facing slopes of the Bithynian
Olympos (modern Ulu Dağ). Remarkably, however, Prusa is some 20 kilo-
metres, a whole day’s journey, from the Sea of Marmara; nor does it have
“easy access by land and to all parts of its territory” – even today, there are
few good roads across the Olympos massif to the southeast of the city. For-
tunately, the fertility of the low-lying farmland to the north was sufficient to
ensure the city’s food supply.
The advantages of Prusa’s location were primarily defensive. The acropolis
was a rocky plateau c. 600 m across, bounded by steep slopes on three sides
and on the fourth by the rising flank of mount Olympos. There are few routes
by which an army can approach by land. The eastern access roads are easily
defended where they pass through the hills, while a force landing on the coast
would need a day or more to reach the city, giving the defenders sufficient
advance warning to deploy their forces in the plain or on the perimeter of the
acropolis. (Perhaps Hannibal’s own experience had taught him that with the
Roman navy in control of the seas, it was better to be located a little distance
inland.) The natural defenses of the acropolis were further strengthened by
walls (fig. 4).
A further natural advantage of Prusa was its hot springs, situated just over
a mile north-west of the acropolis (in the modern suburb of Çekirge). They
are mentioned in an inscription of Hadrian’s reign26 and by Athenaios (late
second century AD), according to whom they were called basilika, “royal”,27
implying not only that the baths enjoyed some prestige in his time but also
that their popularity went back to the period of Bithynian independence.
The suburb by the baths was – and is – an attractive residential area on a
northward-facing slope with a view of the plain below. A Prusan bronze coin
of the late Severan period shows a building flanked by two female figures;
if Robert’s identification of these as the nymphs of the springs is correct, the
edifice in the centre may represent the façade of the bath complex.28
Apart from names and royal epithets, what imprint did the founders
leave on their cities? In making Nikomedia his capital, Nikomedes I ensured
a steady flow of taxes, gifts and revenues into the city, which along with the
Fig. 4. Though ravaged by time and reconstructed several times (note the column ends and
other spolia protruding at the top), the southern wall of Prusa still stands (author’s photo).
building programme and ancillary facilities required for a Hellenistic royal

residence29 would ensure the future growth and prosperity of the city. Exist-
ing settlements such as Astakos already had economic ties to the countryside;
after synoikism these links will have continued, now within the economic
system of the new city. By the time of Nikomedes’ death, Nikomedia was
well on its way to becoming a fully fledged Hellenistic city. It furthermore
enjoyed the geographical advantage of a location on the main road combined
with a saltwater port. For travellers coming from Europe, it would often be
more attractive to sail as far as Nikomedia and go on by road, instead of dis-
embarking at the Hellespont or Bosporos.
Following the Roman annexation, Nikaia became the residence of the
governor and provincial capital (mêtropolis), a status it retained into the first
century AD. To these political assets, it could add the advantages of its lake-
side location, its large agricultural hinterland and its function as a staging
point on the southern highway.
By contrast, the early years of Prusa were precarious. There is no evidence
that major settlements were incorporated into the new city through synoikism,
and while Prusa had its own territory, this did not generate income on the
same scale as the tax and revenue flows into the capital of a kingdom or
province. The founders themselves could not do much to assist it, occupied
as they were with the ongoing war against the neighbouring kingdom of
Pergamon; in any case, within five years of the city’s foundation date, both
Hannibal and Prusias were dead.
Kings and emperors

The Hellenistic monarchs of the second and first century BC have been harshly
judged by history. To some extent, this is because their biographies were
handed down by Roman historians or by historians who, with the perspicac-
ity that comes of hindsight, saw the expansion of Roman power as inevitable.
Even their apologists, however, would have to admit that the foreign policy
of late Hellenistic kings was often oriented towards short-term goals, making
them easy preys for a policy of divide et impera.
The clash of interests in Asia Minor was fueled by the conflicting ambi-
tions of three great powers: Macedonia, the Seleucid kingdom, and Rome,
and of ambitious medium-sized powers like Pergamon, Rhodes, and at a later
date the Pontic kingdom of Mithradates VI. Little Bithynia was too small and
weak to be an independent player in this Great Game, but through shifting
alliances, her rulers tried to exploit the tensions between her neighbours to
their own advantage.
The kingdom of Bithynia was a dynastic monarchy, and violent domestic
conflicts were mainly concerned with rival claims to the royal power. Niko-
medes I killed his brothers to secure undisputed possession of his throne, and
at his death in 255‑253 BC, his sons fought over the succession. A century later,
Prusias II was deposed and killed by his son, Nikomedes Epiphanes, who
invaded Bithynia with support from the neighbouring king of Pergamon.
Bloody and protracted as such conflicts could be, their impact on the village
population and on the artisans and small traders of the cities was mitigated
by the fact that in most cases, the aggressor was out to secure or expand a
territory for himself. It was not in his interest to alienate his future subjects
by excessive brutality, nor to weaken his tax base by slaughtering the popu-
lation or destroying cities. That this was appreciated by the population, or
at least by their leaders, is evident from the behaviour of the Nikomedians
when the unpopular Prusias II was besieged in 149 BC. The citizens opened
the gates to the soldiers of Nikomedes Epiphanes, in effect declaring Niko-
media “an open city”. Their city was spared the horrors of a long siege and
possibly (though the sources do not say so) rewarded in other ways for its
change of allegiance. Prusias sought refuge in the temple of Zeus, where his
son had him killed in defiance of the traditional right of asylum – parricide
and sacrilege were, in the last analysis, less dangerous politically than leaving
a rival claimant to the throne alive.
By the late second century BC, Rome had emerged as the winner of the
Great Game and under the terms of king Attalos’ will, the rich kingdom of
Pergamon, Bithynia’s southern neighbour, was incorporated into the imperium
as the province of Asia. Anti-Roman feeling and the prospect of territorial gains
led Nikomedes III of Bithynia into an alliance with Mithradates VI Eupator
of Pontos. Their aim was to take Paphlagonia and Cappadocia, then divide
these territories between Bithynia and Pontos; however, Roman intervention
and inter-allied rivalry frustrated the plan. The death of Nikomedes III in 94
BC led to a struggle for the succession between Nikomedes IV, leader of a
pro-Roman faction and his half-brother Sokrates Chrestos, the nominee of
Mithradates VI. This vicarious conflict between Rome and Pontos eventually
escalated into the First Mithradatic War. The struggle was protracted and
though Bithynia was on the side of the victor, the Roman intervention was
not without ugly incidents: in 85 BC, the troops at Nikomedia mutinied and
killed their commander, L. Valerius Flaccus, then plundered the city.
After the defeat of Mithradates, Nikomedes IV returned from Italy to his
kingdom. He was well aware that he owed his throne to the Romans and
remained consistently pro-Roman throughout his reign, even following the
example of the Pergamene king and bequeathing his kingdom to the Roman
people.
A young Roman officer, Julius Caesar, was sent by the governor of Asia on
a mission to Bithynia c. 80 BC, “to summon the fleet” (ad accersendam classem),
according to Suetonius.30 It was probably no diplomatic mission, for which a
twenty-year-old would hardly have been chosen; yet he gained access to the
royal circles and spent some time at the court of Nikomedes, so much that it
gave rise to rumours of a homosexual relationship.31 If there is more to the
story than that, Caesar may have been on a fact-finding assignment, to sound
opinion at the Bithynian court and prepare Rome for the takeover that might
come at any moment if Nikomedes IV should die prematurely. The struggle
between Nikomedes and Sokrates had revealed the existence of anti-Roman
sentiment among the aristocracy, and there was reason to fear that unpleasant
memories of the Roman mutiny and pillage might linger in Nikomedia.
At the death of Nikomedes IV in 74, Mithradates VI once more tried to
place a puppet king on the Bithynian throne, and once again, war with Rome
was the result. The Pontic king won control of the Bithynian cities and pushed
across the border into Mysia, where the important port and city of Kyzikos
(at modern Bandirma) withstood a protracted siege. In 73/72 BC, a Roman
army under L. Licinius Lucullus forced Mithradates to adandon the siege
of Kyzikos and retreat eastwards, while the Lucullan forces re-established
Roman control over the cities of western Bithynia.32 During the last stage of
the Third Mithradatic War (66‑63 BC), Pompey the Great commanded the
Roman forces, and after the defeat and suicide of Mithradates, the western part
of his kingdom was united with Bithynia. Both territories were incorporated
into the empire as the province of Bithynia et Pontus and their administrative
structure defined in a provincial code, the lex Pompeia.
Notes
1 Strabon 12.4.7; Stephen of Byzantion, s.v. Nikaia (Meineke 474); Leschhorn 1984,
255.
2 Marek 1993, 21‑23; Højte 2006, 20.
3 The most important of these was Astakos, on the southern shore of the gulf,
which became part of the territory of the new city of Nikomedia but retained its
separate identity: in the second century AD, it is named by Ptolemy of Alexandria
(Geogr. 5.1) as a separate settlement. For the location of Astakos, see Şahin 1973,
71‑73.
4 Strabon, 12.4.3; Arrian, FGrHist 15.6.29 = Tzetses, Chil. 3.963; Stephen, s.v. Prousa
(Meineke 537)
5 For coins bearing the image of the founder Prusias, see IK 40, p. 26‑28. Only in a
few cases, however, is the figure specifically identified as “Prusias, the founder
of Prusa”, e.g. RGMG 1.4 Prusa 48 (Commodus); 116 (Geta).
6 Pliny, NH, 5.148.
7 Strabon 11.14.6.
8 Corsten (IK 40, p. 22‑26) attempts to reconcile the two conflicting traditions by
positing two foundations, first by a prince Prus… in the sixth century BC, then
by Prusias I in the second century BC.
9 Cf. Dion’s apologetic remark, Or. 44.9, that Prusa “is not the largest of our cities
and has not been settled for the longest time”.
10 RGMG 1.3 Nikaia 54‑55; IK 9.21‑30.
11 Kraft 1935, 111; cf. fig. 2.
12 Pol. 1327a11‑1331b23.
13 Pol. 1330a34.
14 Pol. 1330b8.
15 The view that a southerly or westerly aspect is to be avoided because the city
will be too hot, and therefore unhealthy, recurs in the planning advice given by
the Roman architect Vitruvius in the first century AD (De arch. 1.4.1).
16 Pol. 1330b32ff
17 Pol. 1330b32ff
18 Pol. 1330b32ff
19 Pol. 1331a30
20 Şahin 1973, 18.
21 Libanios, Or. 61.7.
22 Libanios, Or 61.17. While the preceding quotation contains a specific reference
to the topography of Nikomedia, the generalized list of public buildings may be
inspired by Aristides’ Monody on Smyrna, Or. 18.6.
23 Mitchell 1983, 138‑139.
24 E.g., RGMG 1.3 Nikomedia 33 (Domitian); 74‑75 (Antoninus Pius); 138 (Commodus);
387 (Philip); also Price and Trell 1977, 213‑215. Stephen of Byzantion identifies
Nikomedia as an emporion, Nikaia as a polis.
25 Pliny, Ep. 10.41. The port installations themselves have long since been destroyed
or built over: Lehmann-Hartleben 1923, 167 n. 1.
26 For the letter, see Robert 1937, 231.
27 Athen. 2.43a.
28 Robert 1946, 97 and pl. 1.
29 Cf. Nielsen 1999, 25‑26, 214‑215.
30 Suetonius, Divus Julius, 2.
31 Suetonius, Divus Julius, 2; 49.
32 Appian, Mithr. 77.
3. Windows on the Past
As part of the Roman Empire, Bithynia et Pontus was one among many prov-
inces, and the Bithynian cities with which we are primarily concerned in this
book were three among hundreds of Roman cities. Any study of urban life
in Roman Bithynia will naturally base itself on sources related to Bithynia
itself or to Roman Asia Minor, but to interpret them properly, one needs to
include evidence from all over the Empire, and to draw on the analogy of
other cities and other provinces.
Townscapes and landscapes

There are not many monumental remains to inform us about the topography
and appearance of ancient Prusa or Nikomedia. Both are now large cities, their
ancient cores overlaid by modern construction and roads. In addition, Niko-
media is plagued by frequent earthquakes – by the late fourth century most of
the Hellenistic and early Roman city had been destroyed beyond recognition.
Fortunately, neither seismic activity nor modern construction could obliter-
ate the characteristic hillside topography of Nikomedia and Prusa, giving the
modern observer some “feel” of the relation of the city to its environment
and useful pointers for interpreting the written evidence. The Acropolis that
formed the centre of ancient Prusa remains an oasis of quiet at the epicentre
of Bursa’s bustling traffic and the Acropolis on the crest above modern Niko-
media still dominates the city. Little is left above foundation level, however;
for an impression of the splendours of the imperial residence, one must go
to the western imperial capital at Trier or to Diokletian’s retirement palace
in Split on the Adriatic.
On the face of it, it seems much easier to visualize the ancient appearance
of Nikaia. The course of the main streets, the theatre and numerous minor
monuments all help the modern visitor create a mental image of the ancient
city; but she needs to remember that much of what is visible today is not the
Nikaia of Pliny or Dion, but later – even the church where the Nicene coun-
cil was held in AD 325 has been replaced by a later structure, today’s Aya
Sofya Camii.
Outside the city gates, archaeological evidence is even scarcer, but again it
is Nikaia that offers the most complete picture. A visitor approaching Nikaia
from the east, cresting the hill and seeing the city spread out on the lakeshore,
then following the road that runs parallel to the aqueduct and skirts the mod-
Fig. 5. Nikaia seen from the east (author’s photo).
ern cemetery, finally entering the city through the east gate of the Roman
walls, will have a fairly good impression of what it was like to approach Nikaia
from the same direction some 1,700 years ago (fig. 5). Further afield, few an-
cient farmsteads or villas have been located, but inscriptions found within
the city’s territory and naming farm stewards testify to their existence. Even
without the bronze sculpture that once adorned it, the extravagant, obelisk-
like funeral monument of C. Cassius Philiskos to the north-west (figs. 22‑24)
is striking evidence of the wealth enjoyed by some Nikaian landowners.
Within the territory of Nikomedia and Prusa, evidence for rural settle-
ment is much sparser. From other parts of the empire, we have evidence for
a fairly close-meshed pattern of agricultural exploitation close to the cities;
that it has not been recorded in Bithynia so far is perhaps mainly due to the
absence of systematic investigation. In the hinterland of Sinope on the coast
of Pontos, recent archaeological survey1 has revealed a pattern of intensive
Roman settlement, and a similar research effort might yield comparable re-
sults in Bithynia. But time is running out, and in the ever-expanding suburbs
of Bursa and Izmit, housing estates and industrial plants are obliterating all
surface traces of ancient habitation and rendering systematic archaeological
survey impossible. For the time being, perhaps for all time, we must rely on
the example of Nikaia and the literary sources for an impression of the cul-
tural landscape of rural Bithynia.
The road network of Roman Bithynia is not well preserved. Although
its main outlines are known and key points (city gates, bridges, mountain
Windows on the Past 33
Fig. 6. Detail of the Tabula Peutingeriana (Staatsbibliothek, Vienna)
passes, fords etc.) can be securely located, the roads themselves are rarely
preserved in their original state, more often ploughed over or overlaid by
modern highways. The third-century Itinerarium Antonini lists only one route
through our region, Chalkedon-Nikomedia-Nikaia-Ankyra; the same route
is decribed in more detail in the Bordeaux Itinerary of the following century.2
The Tabula Peutingeriana, a medieval copy of a late Roman itinerary in map
form (fig. 6) shows several routes through Bithynia. One, coming from Ha
drianoutherai, passes through Prusa, Prusias ad Mare/Kios (which the carto
grapher has rendered as two distinct places) and along the southern shore of
lake Askanios to the port of Kyzikos (which appears as an inland city on the
Tabula). A second route from Anatolia passes through Nikaia and continues
eastward along the northern shore of the lake, with a branch road leading
north-westwards to the Gulf of Izmit. A third route, coming from Amaseia
and Pompeiopolis, leads through Nikomedia to Chalkedon. Some routes can
also be identified from remains of late Roman bridges (e.g., fig. 35) and finds
of Roman milestones.3
Literary sources
History
In the late Hellenistic age, corresponding to the last century of the Roman
republic, Asia Minor was visible to the Roman eye mainly as a trouble spot,
and that is how we encounter it in the narrative history of Appian (The Mith-
ridatic Wars) and in Plutarch’s biographies of Roman commanders and their

adversaries. The early Empire, on the other hand, was a period of comparative
tranquility in western Asia Minor, which makes only intermittent appearances
in the works of Roman historians.
Tacitus or Suetonius tend to focus on events taking place in Italy itself
or at the borders of the empire; more detail is sometimes provided by the
third-century historian Dion Cassius, who was of Nikaian descent. For the
early third century, he is supplemented by Herodian and the notoriously
unreliable Historia Augusta. Still, given the emperors-and-battles approach
that characterizes most Roman historians, it is not much that we learn about
everyday life in distant provinces. It is only with the establishment of a per-
manent imperial residence at Nikomedia and the transfer of the capital from
Rome to Constantinople that Bithynia finds itself within the range of imperial
historians such as Lactantius and Ammianus Marcellinus.
Letters
For more mundane details, we must turn from the sphere of formal historio
graphy to the slightly less formal sphere of letter-writing. In the Roman world,
this was a literary genre in its own right. We possess the collected letters of
numerous persons with a direct interest in Asia Minor: M. Tullius Cicero, who
served as governor of Cilicia and whose brother, Q. Cicero, was governor of
Asia; M. Iunius Brutus, who likewise served as governor of Cilicia;4 and of
course the younger Pliny, governor of Bithynia et Pontus. From the fourth
century, we have the letters of Basil the Great, bishop of Kaisareia, and his
younger brother Gregory of Nyssa; Gregory of Nazianzos; the pagan soph-
ist Libanios;5 the emperor Julian, and others. Imperial rescripts (see below
under Legal texts) form a special subcategory that includes some of Trajan’s
letters to Pliny.
It is worth keeping in mind, however, that ancient letters are, for better or
for worse, works of literature and that unlike modern private correspondence,
they were composed for a wider audience. It was not uncommon for the re-
cipient of a letter to read it aloud or circulate it among his acquaintances, who
might even make copies or excerpts for their own use. For instance, Gregory
of Nyssa relates how he has received a letter from Libanios:
as I was going to the metropolis of the Cappadocians [Kaisareia], I

met an acquaintance, who handed me this present, your letter, as
a New Year’s gift. And I, overjoyed at the occurrence, threw open
my treasure to all who were present; and all shared in it, each
getting the whole of it, without any rivalry, and I was none the
worse off. For the letter by passing through the hands of all, like
a ticket for a feast, is the private wealth of each, some by steady
continuous reading engraving the words upon their memory,
and others taking a copy of them upon tablets.6
Realizing that his letter would come under the close scrutiny of many eyes
and ears, the sender would take pains over its composition and perhaps emu-
late other letter-writers that were considered stylistic models. If he retained
duplicates of his correspondence, the writer could later publish the letters,
giving himself a second chance to go over their style and content, perhaps
even adapting them to changed political circumstances. On the other hand,
the awareness that his original letter might have been copied and retained
by unknown third parties presumably set a limit on the scope for later re-
vision. If the content of the original letter was politically controversial or cast
an unfavourable light on the past activities of its writer, it would be easier
and safer to omit it altogether.
In short, when writing a letter, the author is projecting a certain image of
himself to the recipient and to the recipient’s circle of friends and clients; when
editing a collection of his letters for publication, the writer is drawing a self-
portrait for posterity. From time to time, the modern reader catches revealing
glimpses of the writer’s personality – Pliny’s indecision, the brash arrogance
of Basil, Libanios’ hypochondriac worries – but it is naïve to assume that the
edited correspondence lays bare the entire character of its author.
From a Bithynian viewpoint, the most important of the letter collections
at our disposal is the tenth book of Pliny’s Letters. The majority of these were
composed in Bithynia et Pontus and deal with provincial concerns; they are
complemented by the emperor’s replies to Pliny’s missives. For a detailed
discussion of the Letters the reader is referred to the monumental commen-
tary of Sherwin-White (1966) and the recent précis of the main problems by
Woolf (2006), but it will be useful to summarize some key questions. The date
at which the letters were collected for publication is nowhere indicated, but
if the first nine books were collected and edited by Pliny himself, and if he
died in office in Bithynia, as is often assumed, then the tenth book must have
been published posthumously by another. This would explain why book ten
differs from the other nine in several significant respects. The first nine books
contain letters from Pliny but not those he received. In the published collection,
many of Pliny’s outgoing letters open with a short summary of the incoming
letter to which he is replying. This is a conventional way of opening a letter
also found in other writers7 but Pliny uses it often – 30 % of the letters in the
first nine books are prefaced in with a summary of the correspondent’s pre-
vious message.8 This obviously makes it easier for Pliny’s reader to follow
the discussion between Pliny and his correspondents. The correspondents
themselves would rarely need such prompting, which is sometimes taken
to extremes. For instance, in Ep. 4.10, Pliny not only summarizes the missive
he has received from Statius Sabinus but even quotes a phrase from Sabinus’
letter which Sabinus, in his turn, had quoted from a legal document.9
One possible explanation is that, intending to publish his correspondence
at some future date, Pliny had collected the incoming letters of his friends and
copies of his own outgoing letters. He only intended to include the latter in
his publication, but if the reader were to appreciate their content, some clues
to their context were needed. While reworking a letter for the public, then,
Pliny sometimes inserted a summary of the incoming letters, to provide the
reader with the minimum of background information required to understand
Pliny’s replies. In the first half of the collection this is done only sparingly,
but in books six, seven and nine, nearly half the letters are provided with
such opening summaries, and the trend carries on into the first fifteen letters
of book ten.
The composition of book ten differs from the other books not only in in-
cluding letters to Pliny but also in omitting letters from Pliny to family and
friends; all letters in the tenth book are directed to, or received from, the em-
peror Trajan. The first fifteen letters (1‑14) form a separate group antedating
the appointment of Pliny to Bithynia, some by as much as ten years; some
even antedate the early volumes of private letters.10 This small group includes
three letters from Trajan to Pliny (10.3b; 10.7; 10.9) and three letters by Pliny
opening with a summary of three other letters (not included in the published
collection) received from Trajan.
The remainder of book ten has an altogether different character. First, the
ingoing and outgoing letters are more evenly balanced (though Pliny’s letters
still outnumber those of Trajan by two to one). Secondly, Pliny’s letters are
much shorter than in the preceding part of the collection, less “literary” in
character and – except for one11 – without the opening formula summarizing
the content of the incoming letter.
Clearly, from the outset of his publication project, Pliny intended to reserve
his correspondence with Trajan for a separate volume, which would in some
cases include the emperor’s reply, while in others the main outlines of the
imperial letter would be incorporated into the edited version of Pliny’s reply.
The scanty material that he collected during the first decade of Trajan’s reign
was edited for publication, but the much larger volume of imperial correspon-
dence accumulated during Pliny’s term as governor of Bithynia et Pontus was
never dealt with in the same manner. Presumably he fell ill and died while
still in office, and one of his friends or collaborators combined the provincial
correspondence with the edited imperial letters to form a separate volume, a
sequel to the nine that had already been published. On this assumption, the
letters from 10.15 onwards have come down to us more or less as their copies
were found at the time of Pliny’s death.
Central to any interpretation of Pliny’s letters as historical sources is the
nature of the relationship between the emperor and his legate. A first read-
ing generates an impression of familiarity between the two correspondents,
perhaps even a personal interest in Pliny on the emperor’s part. But these are
precisely the images that the respective letter-writers wished to project: the
governor as an intimate of the monarch, the emperor as a ruler concerned
for the welfare of his subjects and subordinates. That these roles conform to
modern positive archetypes render them all the more convincing to our eyes.
A closer reading of the individual letters and a comparison with the other
nine books of Pliny, and with other ancient letter collections (the letters of
Cicero, which served later writers as a model, and Fronto’s letters to the An-
tonine emperors) reveals a rather more asymmetrical relation between the
correspondents.
First, it is noteworthy that in the entire collection of Pliny’s letters, we
find no letters to Trajan that antedate the latter’s accession as emperor. Since
his personal relationship with Trajan is at the centre of Pliny’s tenth book,
we may take it that if any epistolary evidence of a personal contact prior to
Trajan’s elevation existed, it would have been included or at least referred to
in the published collection.12 It is not; thus the conclusion imposes itself that
Pliny had no prior personal relationship with the emperor. From start to fin-
ish, their relation was one of subject and ruler, reflected in Pliny’s consistent
use of domine, “lord”, when addressing Trajan. Domine is the form used by
a social inferior when addressing his superior, or of a junior addressing a
senior.13 When referring to Trajan in the third person (in letters to his other
correspondents) Pliny likewise uses formal expressions like princeps, Caesar
or imperator noster.14
Writing to Trajan, Pliny takes care to present his ideas as petitions, pro-
posals, suggestions, or queries. This feature and the near absence of personal
content is in striking contrast to the style of the letters in books one to nine,
where a personal touch is often present. Equally instructive is a comparison
with the letters of Fronto: clearly, Fronto enjoyed a closer, less formal rela-
tionship with the ruling dynasty than Pliny ever did.15
Speeches
Our richest source for the political life of the Bithynian cities is the collection
of Orations preserved under the name of Dion Chrysostomos. Dion, a scholar,
sophist and philosopher, returned to his native Prusa after an abortive ca-
reer in Rome and years of exile. He immersed himself in municipal politics
and travelled widely across Bithynia and Asia Minor. Dion’s contemporaries
valued his rhetorical style highly, and many of his speeches were preserved
for posterity by his admirers. They did not, however, succeed in preserving
the entire oeuvre of their master. The biography of Dion by Synesios and the
tenth-century Suda list works by Dion that were lost at an early stage, since
they do not appear in the Bibliothêke of Photios.16 Some of the lost pieces may
have been philosophical exercises of a frivolous or sophistic character (e.g.,
“Encomium of a parrot”) but Dion also wrote a larger work, Getika, presum-
ably based on his own travels and observations among the Getae on the
northwestern Black Sea coast.
The Dionian corpus that has been handed down to us comprises eighty
pieces, in form and style ranging from set speeches to dialogue, myth, and
novel, but conventionally all known as “orations”. Their order is not chrono-
logical, but loosely thematical: the collection opens with the four so-called
“kingship speeches” to the emperor Trajan, and the “municipal” orations are
grouped between Or. 38 and Or. 51.17 The corpus includes two speeches (37
and 64) that are not by Dion himself, possibly by his pupil Favorinus.
One would obviously like to know how the speeches came to be preserved.
Were Dion’s municipal orations extempore performances taken down in
shorthand by city clerks, or noted down by his admiring pupils sitting among
the audience? Though a number of commentators, most recently Cécile Bost-
Pouderon (2006), assume that Dion’s orations were taken down in shorthand,
the theory is not supported by the evidence of the texts themselves, where
we find no traces of different “hands” or misheard phrases that might point
to a shorthand original, nor of interruptions by the audience.18 Even a skilled
shorthand clerk would have found it difficult to render Dion’s Atticisms and
quotations from the classics correctly. A second problem is the assumption
that a shorthand writer would always be available. While shorthand may have
been used for the senatorial Acta at an early date, there is no good evidence
for shorthand records of municipal council proceeedings in the late early or
early second century AD19 and we have no reason to believe that small-town
council secretaries such as T. Flavius Silôn, grammateus of Prusa in Dion’s
time,20 had a team of trained tachygraphers at his disposal.
It appears more likely that the texts as they appear in the corpus are based
on Dion’s speaking notes. This would explain why some “orations” are mere
fragments or introductions to longer speeches, the remainder of which has not
been preserved. In these cases, Dion apparently did not require a full manu-
script for his speech. He could write out the opening paragraphs and rely on
his sophistic training and rhetorical experience to improvise the remainder of
the oration and a conclusion tailored to the reactions of his audience. Some-
times, sections of previous orations would be recycled for new occasions, the
result being word-for-word correspondence between different speeches;21 if
the speeches had been held extempore or from memory, we would expect
some devations in their wording.
In the corpus, each text has a short descriptive rubric, usually indicating
either the subject or the audience of the speech in question (e.g., Or. 4: Peri
basileias; Or. 35: en Kelainais tês Phrygias), or both (Or. 36: Borysthenitikos … en
tê patridi). Again, we would like to know when the rubrics were inserted and
by whom.22 Arnim pointed out that the rubrics of some Bithynian speeches
“den thatsächlichen Inhalte der Stücke nicht entsprechen” suggesting that they
are the work of a not very efficient “Sammler und Ordner”.23 This argument,
however, cuts both ways: even a moderately competent editor could have
extrapolated the information required for a short rubric from the content of
the oration itself, or replaced a misleading rubric with a better one. Since the
imperfect rubrics were retained, they presumably possessed an authority equal
to that of the text itself, perhaps being derived from marginal notes by Dion
himself or added by a source considered to be reliable, such as Favorinus.
Especially important for our purposes are the statements that some Prusan
orations were held en ekklêsia or en boulê (e.g., Or. 48; 49). Since this informa-
tion could not be extracted from the text itself, we must assume that it came
from a note in the actual manuscript or from a source close to the author.
A possible reconstruction of Dion’s modus operandi and the preservation
of his municipal speeches is that for most occasions, Dion did not write his
speech beforehand. In the council, deliberations had the nature of a discus-
sion with fairly brief interventions by each councillor. As Dion was unable
to foresee which course the day’s discussion would take,24 it would be dif-
ficult to prepare a text in advance; instead, he would extemporize, perhaps
supplementing with scraps of previous orations where appropriate. Taking
the evidence of the rubrics at face value, only two of the preserved orations
were held en boulê, and one of these consists almost entirely of generalities
that have clearly been recycled from an earlier speech by way of an introduc-
tion to the point at issue.25
For the longer speeches in the Prusan ekklêsia and in other Bithynian cities,
Dion apparently sometimes wrote up his speech beforehand – not necessar-
ily from scratch, but incorporating material from previous occasions; and not
necessarily the whole speech, but sometimes only the opening, leaving the
rest to be improvised on location or read from another document, such as the
letter from the emperor attached to Or. 44 (but now lost).
For the modern reader, Dion’s municipal speeches provide a fascinating
insight into small-town conflicts, ambitions and trivialities. It needs to be borne
in mind, however, that despite their “documentary” appearance, the orations
of Dion are literary works, composed or re-composed with a specific public
in mind and intended to convey a very specific image of their author.
Legal texts
When Bithynia was incorporated as a province in the late Republican period,
Roman provincial administration was still based on the personal authority of
proconsular or propraetorian governors, tempered by the lex Calpurnia of the
mid-second century BC which had given provincials the right to file a suit de
repetundis at the end of a governor’s term of office.
The sphere of action of the governor was further limited by a provincial
code – in the case of Bithynia et Pontus, the lex Pompeia – by rules of proce-
dure, by custom and local law and by the governor’s edict (below, p. 63-64),
creating a complex of legal sources that varied from province to province.
It is useful to distinguish between three main categories of texts that com-
plement the laws themselves: edicts, which are issued on the initiative of the
emperor or a magistrate; sententiae or opinions, i.e. jurists’ exposition of exist-
ing law; and rescripts, which are the emperor’s response to a specific case or
problem which is laid before him.
In the imperial period, a gradual process of legal harmonization and stan-
dardisation across the Empire can be observed. Important mileposts are the
Constitutio Antoniniana extending Roman citizenship to all free provincials
and Diokletian’s administrative reorganization in the late third century. One

aspect of this process is a proliferation of imperial rulings that apply across
the empire, creating a common and (at least in theory) consistent legal basis
for its administration. These rulings and other sources of law were collected
in the Corpus Juris Civilis, which gives us a detailed picture of late Roman
law; it also preserves important relics of older law codes and commentaries
on non-Roman law, including the peregrine law of Bithynia.
Being normative texts, statutes, edicts and rescripts need to be handled
with some care when used as historical sources. They do not describe the
world as it was, but at best, as the emperor intended it to be. Furthermore,
like a letter-writer, the legislator was making a statement that would be read
and repeated many times, and like a letter-writer, he was concerned to con-
vey a desirable impression of himself (or of the emperor, if he were a jurist in
the imperial chancery). In some cases, the primary motive behind a piece of
legislation may have been to project a positive image of the ruling power.
Inscriptions
The legal sources in turn provide a frame of reference for interpreting the
documentary evidence provided by the epigraphic sources. We are fortunate
to possess a significant body of Bithynian inscriptions, of which the two most
important categories for our purposes are civic inscriptions and funerary
epitaphs. The civic inscriptions are often honorific in character; they record
the achievements of individuals or groups of persons and usually include a
detailed description of the honorand’s career as well as the names and some-
times also the status and titles of the dedicant(s).26 Funerary inscriptions tend
to be less detailed and shorter, but may include family relationships and other
information not found in the honorific inscriptions; also, they cover a slightly
wider social spectrum. A further advantage of funerary inscriptions is that
they provide a complete biography of the person up to his death.
Within Bithynia, the civic inscriptions of Prusias ad Hypium (mod.
Konuralp) form a special group that must be taken into account in any dis-
cussion of Bithynian urban life. In the mid-third century, Prusias ad Hypium
was hastily fortified in anticipation of a Gothic siege.27 Numerous inscribed
stones and slabs were incorporated into the walls and thus preserved for pos-
terity, providing the most complete epigraphic record for civic life in Bithynia
generally. For instance, of the 64 Bithynian archons whose names have been
recorded for posterity, 45 are from Prusias ad Hypium; of 26 Bithynian ago-
nothetes, 22; and eight out of ten censors.28 Though Prusias ad Hypium was
located some distance from the three cities that are at the focus of this study,
its inscriptions are indispensable for a deeper understanding of Bithynian
municipal government.
This raises the wider question of how, and to what extent, it is possible to
draw parallels from one city to another, or even from one province to another.
Some studies, such as the recent work by Dimitriev (2005), are based on the
assumption that city administration followed similar patterns throughout Asia
Minor; hence, information about conditions in one city may – in the absence
of evidence to the contrary – be taken to cover all cities in the region. The at-
traction of this approach is that once it is accepted that city power structures
were the same throughout, the fragments of information that we possess can
be combined into a “standard” civic structure. Two problems, however, need
to be taken into account. The first is that although certain legal principles and
practical procedures apply throughout the provinces of the Roman Empire
(e.g., the right of appeal of a Roman citizen), before the third century there
were few serious attempts at harmonization of local and regional adminis-
trative structures.
The second is that the Roman vocabulary for administrative offices was
limited and highly adaptable. The terms legatus, curator, decurio, prafectus
or tribunus had a wide range of meanings and could apply to civilian and
military positions alike. Unless their nature is specified by the addition of a
qualifying noun (e.g., curator civitatis) one cannot be sure that they refer to
identical or similar functions. Greek designations for urban offices such as
logistês, epimelêtês, prostatês, logothetês etc. likewise cover a fairly wide semantic
spectrum; and as noted by Dölger in his study of Byzantine administration,
titles persist even when the nature of an office changes over time,29 just as the
praetorian prefecture of the fourth century had nothing in common with the
office of praetorian prefect under the early empire.
It also needs to be remembered that in what we may call biographical
inscriptions – a category that includes both honorific and funerary inscrip-
tions – what is recorded may be exceptional rather than typical, and that there
is a strong social bias. Inscriptions on stone or bronze were expensive, and we
do not find many working-class heroes in the epigraphic record.
Finally, formal inscriptions provide an incomplete and one-sided view of
Greek perceptions of the ruling power: hostile attitudes could be voiced in
the agora or elsewhere, but writing them down was a different matter. Only
in exceptional cases we do find hostility expressed in the epigraphical record,
for instance by a citizen of Kourion in Cyprus who put a curse on the Roman
governor in connection with a court case.30
Coins
The ancient world knew only one mass medium: coinage. The main purpose
of early coin images and legends was to authenticate the origin, purity and
quality of the coin itself, but from the late Republic onwards, Roman mon-
eyers developed and exploited the propagandistic potential of coinage by
combining short, abbreviated titles and slogans with images carrying power-
ful symbolic connotations.31 The imperial mints were large-scale operations
producing coins in gold, silver and bronze, which circulated throughout the
Fig. 7. Left: Bronze coin of the Bithynian koinon, struck under Hadrian (AD 117‑138);
the reverse shows the facade of the imperial temple in Nikomedia. RGMG 1.2 Commune
Bithyniae 44 (Münzen und Medaillen Deutschland). Right: Nikomedian bronze coin of
Valerian, Gallienus and Valerian II (AD 256‑258). The reverse shows a bird’s eye view of
the Nikomedian temple precinct with an altar at its centre, flanked by three temples. In the
central temple, the artist has omitted two columns, allowing us to see the cult statue inside.
RGMG 1.3 Nikomedia 407 = SNG Aulock 860 (Classical Numismatic Group).
empire (with the exception of Egypt, which had its own mint in Alexandria
and its own closed currency system).32
At a lower level, regions and cities also struck coins in bronze for local use
(fig. 7). From the mid-first to the mid-second century AD, coins were struck
in the name of the Bithynian koinon, and the cities of Bithynia continued
to strike bronze coins until the mid-third century. Earlier scholars, such as
Bosch (1935), assumed that local mints were small-scale counterparts of the
large imperial mints, and that each city had its own permanent workshop
and mint-master. This would imply the existence of hundreds of local mint
workshops in Asia Minor. Since the work of Konrad Kraft (1972), however,
it is accepted that most Asian cities had no mints of their own but were
supplied from outside, and that at any given time, perhaps no more than a
dozen mints were operating in Asia Minor.33 Some of these were itinerant
enterprises, moving from city to city in response to local demand.34 Since
the obverse die did not wear out as quickly as the reverse die, and as the
obverse legend and image were not related to a specific city, a mint-master
might sometimes use the same obverse die for coin series struck on behalf
of different issuers. For instance, an obverse die of the emperor Gordian
was used to strike coins for Nikaia, Nikomedia and Prusias ad Mare, with
different reverse designs.35
Like their imperial counterparts, the local moneyers used coinage as a
medium to convey a message on behalf of the city or koinon responsible for
the issue. Most city coins of Asia Minor follow the same format with a stan-
dard portrait of the emperor or another member of the ruling house on the
obverse, which thus closely resembles the output of the imperial mints. On
the reverse, there was scope for local variation and self-representation. The
range of symbols, images and legends on coin reverses reveal how the city
elite viewed themselves and their city, and what image they wanted to project.
Furthermore, engravers often included depictions of monuments, especially
temples, and coins thus provide important pointers to the topography and
architectural history of individual cities.36
Notes
1 Doonan 2004.
2 It.Ant. 139‑143; It.Burd. 571‑575.
3 For an attempt at reconstructing the road network of Bithynia et Pontus, see
Marek 2003, map V.
4 On the authenticity of Brutus’ letters, see, most recently, Moles 1997.
5 Libanios travelled back and forth through Anatolia en route between his home-
town Antioch and the capital; he also spent seven years of his life teaching ín
Bithynia, first in Nikaia (342‑344) then in Nikomedia (344‑349). Unfortunately
from our point of view, none of his letters prior to 350 have survived; Bradbury
2004, 73.
6 Gregory of Nyssa, Ep. 14, adapted from H.C. Ogle’s translation in NPNF.
7 E.g. in Fronto’s correspondence with Marcus Aurelius; also in some of Trajan’s
letters to Pliny, cf. Ep. 10.18; 10.34; 10.44; 10.50; 10.66; 10.80; 10.93.
8 For a familiar example, cf. the openings of Pliny’s two letters to Tacitus about
his uncle’s death, Ep. 6.16 and 6.20.
9 Sherwin-White 1966, 6‑9, addresses the stylistic aspect of Pliny’s letter-openings,
but devotes little attention to their function.
10 In Ep. 10.3a Pliny asks Trajan for permission to act as prosecutor of Marius
Priscus in a case de repetundis, c. AD 100; the same case is mentioned in Ep. 2.11
and 2.12.
11 Ep. 10.51.
12 Compare Ep. 2.11, in which Pliny recounts how he has been pleading a case before
the emperor and takes pains to emphasize the “interest” (studium), “attention”
(cura) and “concern” (sollicitudo) shown him by Trajan, with Dion’s Or. 45.3,
where he claims to enjoy the “interest” (spoudê) and “friendship” (philanthropia)
of the same emperor.
13 Sherwin-White 1966, 557‑558.
14 E.g., Ep. 2.11; 3.18.
15 Millar 1977, 114‑115.
16 The corpus of eighty speeches known to us was established by the time of Photios,
but in the version he used, the speeches were arranged in a different order, e.g.
the Euboicus (Or. 7) was known to Photios as the 13th oration, and the “homonoia
orations” (Or. 38‑41) as nos. 21‑24. On Photios as a source for the life and oeuvre
of Dion, see Schamp 1987, 263‑270; Hägg 1975, 160‑183.
17 For a detailed discussion of the arrangement of Dion’s speeches, see Arnim
1891.
18 Compare, e.g., the lively to-and-fro of the assembly meeting recorded in P.Oxy.
2407 (late third century)
19 Well into the second century, municipal council proceedings were still taken
down in note form and rendered in oratio obliqua, Coles 1966b.
20 IK 39.3; see also p. 103-104.
21 E.g., Or. 32.67 and 33.57.
22 They were certainly in place before the time of Photios, who gives the rubrics in
more or less the same form that we find them in the mss. of the corpus; cf. Hägg
1975, 161.
23 Arnim 1891, 368‑369

24 The normal order of speaking in Roman city councils, as in the senate, was accord-
ing to seniority and the rank of one’s previous magistracies (Digest 50.3.1); as a
recent arrival who had not held the archontate, Dion would not be among the
first speakers of the day.
25 Or. 49; in 49.1‑13, Dion provides a wide-ranging discussion of philosophical atti-
tudes to the exercise of political power, with examples drawn from faraway places
like Persia and Gaul; then in 49.14‑15, he briefly states his reasons for declining
the offer of an archontate. The contrast between the two sections is striking.
26 For a discussion of the nature and development of the honorific inscription as a
genre, see Quass 1993, 29‑35.
27 Ameling, IK 27 p. 17.
28 Fernoux 2004, 321, tab. 14.
29 Dölger 1927, 10‑11; also 67‑71. Some titles used in the fiscal administration of
the fourth and fifth century, such as dioiketês, survived the feudalization of the
Byzantine empire and remained in use as late as the twelfth century.
30 IKourion, 127‑145.
31 Hannestad 1986, 21‑27, 56‑58.
32 For the Egyptian coinage see, most recently, Christiansen 2003.
33 Kraft 1972, 90.
34 Kraft 1972, 92‑93.
35 Kraft 1972, Taf. 102, 38a-b.
36 Price and Trell 1977, 99‑106; 201; 213; 215; Kraft 1935, 213‑220.
4. The Urban Environment
Civic self-perceptions
To Greeks and Romans of the early imperial period, city life was synonymous
with the good life. True, among upper-class Romans, the lifestyle of the coun-
try gentleman still enjoyed a certain moral and ideological prestige, but even a
self-professed lover of rural life like the younger Pliny spent little time in his
Tuscan villa, even less in his native town of Comum, and preferred his villa
suburbana at Laurentum, within commuting distance of the capital. Greeks,
for their part, regarded the polis and its institutions as the centre of civilized
life; regions with a large rural population and few cities – e.g., Boiotia and
Cappadocia – were thought to produce sturdy, slow-witted people.
This self-perception of town-dwellers versus country folk may seem sur-
prising, given the fact that in the ancient world, the vast majority lived in the
countryside. Perhaps for this very reason, the city-dwellers cherished their
urban identity.
What set the city aside from the country? First, legal status. A city, even
an unimportant one, was a polis, a self-governing community, unlike a kômê,
village, which was defined by its subjection to a polis. But of course every polis
did not enjoy the same prestige; some were so small that they were not much
better than kômai. Writing in the second century AD, Pausanias described the
once prosperous city of Panopeus as a community that was a polis in name
only, having “no government building, no theatre, no agora, no aqueduct and
no fountain”.1
To Pausanias and his readers, a true polis was defined not only by its
legal status but by possessing public buildings and amenities. The theatre,
council house and agora may be taken as a minimum; more important cities
would also have monumental temples, a gymnasium and colonnaded streets.
The pride that cities took in their public buildings, especially their walls and
temples, was reflected in their coinage (figs. 7 and 34).
The same dichotomy of town and country, the same fear that the city may
sink to the functional level of a rural settlement, is found in the seventh, or
“Euboian”, oration of Dion, where a speaker deplores how “men are farm-
ing the gymnasium and grazing cattle in the market-place … having made
the gymnasium into a ploughed field … the statues of gods and heroes are
hidden by the standing corn” and “when strangers first come to our city,
they either laugh at it or pity it”.2 It is not the jungle but the farmland that
is encroaching on the unnamed Euboian polis, which has sunk to the level
where strangers deride it as resembling a village, much in the same way that
Pausanias mocks Panopeus.
In the fourth century, the same theme is taken up by Basil the Great in an
impassioned letter to an old friend, Martinianus, whom Basil asks to use his
influence with the emperor to prevent a planned reorganization of Cappado-
cia.3 Under the new scheme, Basil’s episcopal city, Kaisareia (mod. Kayseri)
would no longer be a provincial capital, and Basil goes on to describe what
consequences the loss of status will have on city life. He paints a depressing
canvas of a Kaisareia reduced to the moral and intellectual status of a village.
No more “meetings and conversations, the encounters of respected men in the
agora”; an “educated man trained in speaking” is a rare sight and instead, the
“uncultured lifestyle of Scythians or Massagetes” – proverbial barbarians –
pervades the city. The only sounds heard in the agora are usurers arguing with
their debtors and the cries of criminals being whipped, “gloomily echoed by
the colonnades on either side”. In the struggle for our daily existence, Basil
continues, we will hardly notice the “abandoned gymnasia and nights without
lights” (nyktas alampeis).4
Clearly Basil is out to make a point and has no time for objectivity in
his evocative description of the despondent prospects facing Kaisareia, nor
in his dismissive characterization of the rival community Podandus (mod.
Pozanti) as a hole in the ground, “emitting noxious fumes”.5 Of greater in-
terest to us is his general comparison of rural and urban life. Urban life is a
priori taken to be vastly superior to the half-civilized existence of the country
village, where there is little education (paideia) and men are not “trained in
speaking”.
In Basil’s view, country folk are culturally on a level with barbarian tribes
living outside the borders of the empire: Scythians and Massagetes. The sin-
ister gloom of the colonnades surrounding the marketplace symbolizes the
penurious state of social organization, and within the agora itself, the cultured
intercourse of the past has given way to brutal exploitation (“the arguments
of usurers and their victims”) and savage punishment.
It is striking how closely Basil’s indicators of urban culture correspond to
those of Pausanias and Dion. As in Dion’s Euboian city, the agora and gym-
nasium of Kaisareia are given over to other purposes or abandoned for beasts
to graze in. The phrase “nights without lights” further underscores the urban-
rural dichotomy. The juxtaposition of (urban) paideia and (rural) ignorance
as light and darkness is a convenient metaphor, and one that would come
naturally to a churchman; here, it is elegantly exploited to create the powerful
visual image of the dark colonnades. At the same time, “nights without lights”
reminds Basil’s reader how the daily cycle of a city sets it apart from rustic
villages. In a village, the daily cycle follows the age-old pattern: rising early
to tend the fields and the flocks, retiring early as darkness sets in and makes
manual chores impossible. In the city, where much of the population earns a
The Urban Environment 47
living as artisans, in the tertiary sector and as hangers-on or slaves of urban

households, the daily life cycle has a different rhythm and activity does not
cease at sundown but continues well into the evening and night.
Titles and status

As Basil’s letter makes clear, titles and administrative functions were impor-
tant prizes in the agôn between the leading cities of a province. In the second
century, the Nikomedians erected a statue to one of their citizens, the athlete
T. Aelius Aurelianus Theodotos, at Delphi; the accompanying inscription,
enumerating the many games in which Titus had participated, opens with the
impressive list of the city’s titles: “The metropolis and first city of Bithynia-
Pontos, Hadrianic, neôkoros, sacred and with the right of asylum, longtime
friend and ally of the Roman people”.6
In his speech to the Nikomedians On Concord, Dion ridicules the com-
petition of Nikomedia and Nikaia for “empty names” without substance.7
On another occasion,8 however, Dion enumerates the practical and eco-
nomic advantages of a city having its own assize district instead of being
part of another city’s circuit. In other words, not every title was an “empty
name”; some were indicators of important political and cultic functions in
the city.
The most important function was clearly that of administrative centre or
“provincial capital”. Since neither Greek nor Latin writers had a technical term
for this function, they used the word mêtropolis, “mother city”.9 In Strabon’s
time, Nikaia was the metropolis of Bithynia10 but shortly afterwards,11 it was
demoted and the rank of metropolis passed to the Nikomedians.12
Another important epithet was neôkoros, “custodian of the temple”. The
word is used in a general sense for the temple of any deity13 but more spe-
cifically of a city with a temple to Rome and the emperor. Two imperial cults
were established in Bithynia – in Nikomedia and Nikaia – but it would seem
that by the mid-first century, that of Nikaia had lapsed.14 From the second
century onwards, numerous coin types struck in Nikomedia – both the city’s
own issues and those struck on behalf of the koinon – include the title neôkoros
and/or depictions of the imperial temple(s).
Shortly after the accession of Commodus and thanks to the influence of
Saoteros, an intimate of the emperor and native of Nikomedia, the city estab-
lished a separate temple to Commodus and henceforth styled itself dis neôkoros,
“twice neochore”(fig. 3a).15 Within a few years, Saoteros had been eliminated
by his rivals at the court; if the new cult survived his fall, it certainly came to
an end when Commodus suffered memoria damnata in 193.
Within five years, Nikomedia was once again dis neôkoros, having estab-
lished a cult of Septimius Severus as a mark of its loyalty to the new dynasty;
twenty years later a further Severan cult, that of Elagabal, was added and the
city now styled itself tris neôkoros. Once again, memoria damnata intervened and
Nikomedia found itself reduced to two neochorates until the mid-century,

when a cult was established in the name of Valerian. Coins struck during
his reign bear the legend Nikomêdôn tris neôkorôn and images of the three
temples16 (fig. 7b).
In the contest with the Nikomedians, Nikaia was down, but not out: the
city still styled itself prôtê polis tês eparcheias, “first city of the province”. The
earliest known occurrence of this title is a Nikaian coin from the proconsulate
of L. Cadius Rufus, AD 47/48.17 Possibly the Nikaians adopted the title “first
city” as a compensation for the city’s loss of metropolitan status.18 The claim
to proteia reappears throughout the Flavian period on Nikaian coins bearing
the legend “first of the province” or “first in Bithynia”.
Towards the end of the century, the war of titles escalated. Some Nikaians
still resented the city’s loss of metropolitan status and one coin issue, struck
at Nikaia in the reign of Domitian, names Rome – not Nikomedia! – as the
metropolis and Nikaia as “the first city of Bithynia and Pontos”.19 It was a blow
below the belt – “une perfide intention”, in the words of Louis Robert20 – that
was not repeated. It did nothing to improve the tense relationship between
the two cities.
By this time, the Nikomedians had also adopted the title “first” on their
coins. We do not know all the details of the conflict that followed. The Nikai
ans may have been first to protest at this arrogation of “their” title; the Niko-
medians may well have responded condescendingly that their city and not
Nikaia was the real “first city” of the province. Dion’s proposed solution to
the problem – that both cities should be allowed to call themselves “first”21 –
reveals that unlike neôkoros and mêtropolis, “first” was not a title granted by
the Roman authorities, but as Dion himself describes it, an empty epithet that
a city could apply to itself.
From the evidence of the coinage – admittedly e silentio – it appears that
from the early second century, the Nikaians no longer used the title “first”,
whereas the Nikomedians continued to do so into the Severan period. It would
seem that Dion’s conciliatory proposal was not followed and the Nikaians
were forced to abandon their claim to proteia – at least on their coins.
It soon resurfaced, however, in the inscriptions set up c. AD 123 over the
north and east gates of the city. Here, Nikaia proudly introduced itself to the
visitor as “neôkoros of the imperial cult, founded by Dionysos and Herakles,
first city of Bithynia and Pontos, metropolis by the decision of the Emper-
ors and the Senate”. Deliberately ambiguous in its wording, the inscription
was not a claim to present status but a historical statement about its glorious
past;22 as such it could not be challenged by the Nikomedians and probably
remained in place for seventy-five years until it was erased following the civil
war of 193‑194 (p. 150).
Fig. 8. Map of Nikaia (Inger Bjerg Poulsen)
City plan and architecture

As we have already seen, a city’s monuments and physical appearance was
assumed to reflect the intellectual and cultural superiority of urban life. A
regular plan was one of the characteristic features setting the city apart from
a village and a regular, harmonious appearance drew positive comments:
The city [Nikaia] is sixteen stadia in circuit and is quadrangular in

shape; it is situated in a plain, and has four gates; and its streets
are cut at right angles, so that the four gates can be seen from one
stone which is set up in the middle of the gymnasium (Strabon,
first century AD).23
It is difficult to find elsewhere a city plan like that of Nikaia; one

would think it a model set for all cities on account of its regular-
ity and beauty, which are such that the tops of all its buildings,
adorned with an equal symmetry, appear to offer a splendid view
to the beholder. It is decorated and harmonious in every respect
(Expositio totius mundi, fourth century AD).24
As one would expect of a Hellenistic city, Nikaia had a Hippodamic street

plan laid out around the two main axes described by Strabon, east-west and
north-south. Today, the two main streets of Iznik still intersect in the centre
of the city, at the site of Strabon’s gymnasium, and it is still possible to see
all four gates from this point.
Fig. 9. Remains of the southern wall of

Nikomedia’s citadel in the Medrese Sokak,
northwest of the city centre (author’s
photo).
Fig. 10. The course of the late antique east wall can still be traced through the gardens and
backyards of the Terzebayiri district in north-eastern Izmit (author’s photo).
The agora was the social and economic centre of the city. In more than one
sense, it was also the visual expression of the city’s vitality. A bustling agora
surrounded by temples, public buildings or colonnades was the hallmark of a
prosperous and cultured urban community and conversely, for Dion or Basil,
a deserted or overgrown agora was visible evidence that a community had
come down in the world. A monumental agora might be surrounded by stoai,
colonnades; in the largest and richest cities, the principal streets might also be
lined by columns. Among the Bithynian cities, Dion seems to imply that in
his time, Nikomedia possessed a colonnaded street; Libanios also mentions
stoai among the monuments of the city.25 Dion undertook to beautify Prusa in
a similar manner.26 By the third century Prusias ad Hypium, too, possessed a
colonnaded plateia.27 Nikaia – which the fourth-century source quoted above
describes as ornata – probably also possessed a street colonnade.
Defenses
The city wall and its gates marked the dividing line between town and country
and served as visual indicators of urban status. In Dion’s seventh oration, the
presence of “a strong wall with square towers”28 is at once a historical testi-
mony to the former greatness of the Euboian city and a mental barrier that
separates the wrangling politicians in the city from the pastoral tranquility
outside.29 Since only the larger and more important cities were walled, the
mural crown, representing a city wall with turrets, was often used as iconic
shorthand for “city”, for instance on coin issues showing a goddess – most
commonly Tyche – wearing a mural crown to identify her as a city’s protect-
ing deity fig. 30). On the fourth-century Tabula Peutingeriana, the cities are
marked with pictographs that illustrate their relative importance; the second
highest class – which includes both Nikaia and Nikomedia – is indicated by
a stylized silhouette of a city with curtain wall and towers (fig. 6).
Under the year AD 123, the seventh-century Chronikon Paschale records how
“in Nikomedia and Nikaia, Hadrian erected markets and tetraplateiai (four-
street intersections) and the walls towards Bithynia”.30 Conversely, tearing
down a city’s walls was a severe blow not only to the security of its citizens
but to their self-esteem, as when Valens punished the Chalkedonians for
supporting the usurper Prokopios by having their walls demolished. In this
case, insult was added to injury: the building materials were ferried across
the strait and used to build the Carosian baths in Constantinople, the upstart
city which had recently eclipsed Chalkedon as the leading settlement on the
Bosporos.31
It goes without saying that a royal capital such as Nikomedia was walled,
for defense as well as representation. A tight perimeter surrounded the Acro
polis, presumably the first part of the city to be walled. A larger defensive
circuit some 6km in length stretched in a semicircle from the shore west of
the city, along the hills and behind the Acropolis to meet the shore again to
Fig. 11. Map of Nikomedia (Inger Bjerg Poulsen)
the east. As we have heard, Nikomedia was besieged in 149 BC, when the
defenders opened the city gates to the forces of Nikomedes Epiphanes and
Prusias II took refuge in the temple of Zeus, which must thus have been in-
side the walls; this suggests that the larger defensive perimeter was in place
by then. On the other hand, as noted by Dörner,32 the city’s western necropo-
lis is located to the east of – thus inside – the line of the present walls. This
clearly indicates that when the necropolis was in use – that is, well into the
third century AD – this area was still outside the pomerium. The most likely
explanation is that at some time in the late third century the line of the west-
ern wall was shifted some hundred metres westward, perhaps by Diokletian
when he made Nikomedia his residence.
Around the Acropolis and along the eastern flank of the outer perimeter,
remains of the wall are visible in places and even if little of the present fabric
is of ancient date, they convey a general impression of the strength of the
city’s defenses in the late third century AD.
The steep slopes of the Prusan acropolis formed a natural defensive pe-
rimeter to the west and north. The weakest section was to the south, facing
Fig. 12. Map of Prusa

(Inger Bjerg Poulsen)
mount Olympos across a broad, level area. Along this line, substantial sec-
tions of the ancient and early medieval walls remain standing. Parallel to
the southern wall, a subsidiary outer wall (on the model of the Theodosian
defenses of Constantinople) was later added.
Since the choice of site seems to have been guided by considerations for
its defense, the city no doubt possessed a fortified perimeter from its earliest
stage. According to Paulus Orosius, writing in the fifth century AD but draw-
ing on the works of earlier historians, by the time of the Mithradatic wars
Prusa was already “a strongly fortified city” (munitissima civitas).33
Nikaia’s walls as they stand now are the product of more than a thousand
years’ construction, reconstruction and modification. Until c. AD 400, four
stages can be dated with reasonable accuracy:
a. Hellenistic – presumably the first walled circuit of the city, nearly 3km
in length, which was still standing in the early first century AD and de-
scribed by Strabon, who gives the length of the wall circuit and testifies
to the existence of four gates.34
b. Flavian – new north and east gates dedicated shortly after AD 70, dated
by inscriptions over the gates (fig. 25); possibly also new south gate in AD
78/79.35
c. Hadrianic – reconstruction after the earthquake of 120, commemorated by
a second set of honorific inscriptions over the north and east gates,36 and
mentioned in the Chronikon Paschale (“the wall toward Bithynia”)
d. Mid-third century – heightening of the walls, construction of new gates
to the south and west, terminus ante quem established by inscription in
honour of Claudius Gothicus (268‑270); third-century walls also depicted
on coins of Gallienus (253‑268), Macrianus and Quietus (260‑261).
Very little remains of the pre-third century walls. A small gate or postern
(“Tor 6”) built of dressed stone blocks, now standing alone and half buried
some distance northeast of the Lefke gate, has been claimed as Hellenistic
Fig. 13. Now standing a little distance northeast of the eastern (Lefke) gate of Nikaia, the
small “Gate 6” may be a remnant of the Hellenistic defense perimeter (author’s photo).
Fig. 14. The earlier walls of Nikaia have all but disappeared under the massive third-century
fortifications, but just west of the north (Istanbul) gate, the later walls were built up against
the Hadrianic wall. That is now gone, but a negative impression of its plaster facing, scored
to imitate masonry blocks, remains (author’s photo).
(fig. 13);37 and in a section of wall immediately to the west of the north (Is-
tanbul) gate, the inner face of the wall clearly shows the imprint of its pre-
decessor, a plaster-faced wall scored to imitate masonry (fig. 14). Dalman,
Fick and Schneider, who surveyed the defences of Nikaia in the early 1930’s,
rejected a Hellenistic date for “Tor 6” because it is constructed from re-used
blocks (given the seismic history of Nikaia, hardly a clinching argument)38 and
dated the wall imprint by the north gate to the Hadrianic period on stylistic
grounds. In the absence of evidence for an earlier building stage, Schneider
(1938) tentatively concluded that the Flavian gates were not connected by
walls until the Hadrianic period39 while “Tor 6” was not constructed until
the third century.40
The chronology proposed by Schneider poses several problems. First, it
implies that for half a century the new Flavian gates stood alone, not joined
up by walls. Secondly, the fate of the Hellenistic circuit is not discussed by
Schneider: was it maintained during this period, with the new gates stand-
ing some way outside the enclosed area; or was the Hellenistic perimeter
abandoned, leaving the city unwalled? On reflection, neither scenario seems
likely. In any case, the archaeological e silentio argument for the absence of a
Flavian wall is somewhat dubious, since the investigators likewise failed to
find remains of a Hellenistic wall (which is known to have existed).
Accepting the dating of Schneider (1938) for the plaster-faced wall at the
north gate to the Hadrianic period, a more probable sequence of events is the
following: due to the extension of the urban area in the early Flavian period,
the Hellenistic defensive circuit was abandoned on three sides of the city
(but retained towards the west). The new gates to the north, east and south
were joined up by a curtain wall, re-using the building materials from the
Hellenistic walls41 (which explains why the older wall circuit is untraceable).
Half a century later, the earthquake of 120 caused sections of the Flavian wall
to collapse; these were repaired and replastered with financial support from
the fiscus, commemorated by additional gateway inscriptions in honour of
Hadrian. In the third century, the walls were reinforced and heightened; the
gates were provided with flanking towers and a new superstructure to ac-
commodate a portcullis.
The small gate or postern (“Tor 6”) remains undated and unexplained;
if it is not Hellenistic, then the Flavian-Hadrianic walls must have made an
inward deviation (of which no trace remains) along this sector. Another in-
terpretation of “Tor 6” would see it as a – possibly rebuilt – remnant of the
Hellenistic perimeter, retained and re-used either in the new wall itself or as
the gate of a courtyard.
Like the inhabitants of other cities, Nikaians clearly took pride in their
walls. Over the gates of the Flavian perimeter, inscriptions declared the loyalty
of the city to the régime, without ignoring the chance of a little self-advertise-
ment (fig. 17, 25). They honour the emperor Vespasian, the imperial house
“and the first [city] of the province, Nikaia”.42 The ostensible dedicant was the
Fig. 15. North (Istanbul) gate seen from the inside. Originally, the gates were flanked by stat-
ues in the niches on either side. In the third century, the walls were raised and the gate was
completely rebuilt, with a new brick superstructure added to accommodate a portcullis and its
lifting gear. The slot for the portcullis, which was cut through the existing arch, is visible in
the eastern wall of the archway. Compare fig. 17 (p. 63) and fig. 34 (p. 159). (Jesper Majbom
Madsen)
provincial governor, M. Plancius Varus, who appears in the nominative case,

but the work was done under the supervision of a local notable, C. Cassius
Chrestus (of whom we shall hear more below, p. 113-114).
Fig. 16. Elevation of the north (Istanbul) gate from the outside. (Schneider & Karnapp 1938).
Notes
1 Pausanias, 10.4.1. Panopeus was sacked by Sulla’s troops in 86 BC (Plutarch, Sulla
16.4) and apparently never recovered.
2 Dion, Or. 7.38‑39.
3 Basil, Ep. 74; for the historical background, Van Dam 2002, 28‑31; for the sequel,
Courtonne 1973, 366‑367.
4 Ep. 74.2‑3.
5 Ep. 74.3.
6 TAM 4.1.34, reign of Antoninus Pius; the inscription is now lost. For a later vari-
ant of the same titulature, see TAM 4.1.25 (AD 214); for a commentary, Robert
1977, 28‑29.
7 Or. 38.24.
8 Or. 35.15.
9 As in the late Roman Notitia Galliarum, where metropolis civitas is used to identify
the capitals of the Gallic provinces (Harries 1978).
10 Geo. 12.4.7: Nikaia hê mêtropolis tês Bithynias.
11 Bosch (1935, 224) takes the reorganisation to be the work of Germanicus during
the latter’s sojourn in Bithynia on his way to Syria in AD 18‑19. The governor-
ship of L. Mindius Balbus (c. 43‑47) provides a terminus ante quem, cf. RGMG 1.3
Nikomedia 14‑17 and Rémy 1988, 23.
12 In the fourth century, Nikaia became a titular metropolis, but Nikomedia retained
the position as provincial and dioecesan capital.
13 E.g., Acts 19.35: neôkoros Artemidos, “guardians of the temple of Artemis”.
14 Three Nikaian inscriptions mentioning priests of the imperial cult: IK 9.116 (late
first century), IK 9.60 (early third century) and IK 9.64 (late third century) prob-
ably refer to the imperial temple of Nikomedia; cf. Fernoux 2004, 527. Had the
Nikaians won a neochorate for themselves, one would surely have found the
title neôkoros on some of the city’s coins.
15 Cassius Dion 72.12; Bosch 1935, 229; for the career of Saoteros, see also SHA
Commodus 3‑4.
16 RGMG 1.3 Nikomedia 405‑421. The exact date is not known, probably c. 254; a
coin issue in the name of Gallienus as augustus but bearing the reverse legend
Nikomêdeôn dis neôkorôn (RGMG 1.3 Nikomedia 414) provides a terminus post quem
of October 253.
17 Robert 1977, 4; RGMG 1.3 Nikaia 30.
18 Dräger 1993, 238 claims that prôtos and mêtropolis were official titles introduced
under Claudius as an expression of “eine besondere Wertschätzung des Kaisers
für die Stadt”, but this accords ill with Dion’s detailed discussion of these two
titles in Or. 38.23‑39. Dion makes it quite clear that mêtropolis and prôtos are titles
of a different nature, one formal and indivisible, the other informal (38.39); as
for prôtos, it is said to be “so petty, so commonplace, things upon which fools
might pride themselves” – hardly the words in which Dion would describe a title
bestowed by the emperor who had enfranchised Dion’s much-admired maternal
grandfather.
19 RGMG 1.3 Nikaia 61.
20 Robert 1977, 4.
21 Or. 38.39.
22 Most modern readers, e.g. Robert 1977, 18‑19, Şahin 1978, 24‑25, Merkelbach
1987, 26, have assumed that the inscription lists the current titles of Nikaia (in
123), of which she was later stripped (in 194): “Es zeigt sich, dass der Stadt drei
Ehrentitel aberkannt worden sind … Nikaia war nun nicht mehr Verwalterin des
Kaiserkultes, nicht mehr erste Stadt der Provinz Bithynien und Pontos, nicht mehr
Metropolis” (Merkelbach). By the early second century, however, Nikaia was no
longer a metropolis and Dion explicitly says (Or. 38.39) that this title was reserved
(exairetos) for Nikomedia. He is supported by the inscription of Matidianus Pollio
at Ephesos (IK 13.627), put up before 193 and naming only Nikomedia, among
the three leading cities of Bithynia, as the metropolis. As for a second-century
neochorate, this is not mentioned on any Nikaian coin issue; by 123, Nikaia had
also ceased to use “first city” on its coinage. The solution to the apparent paradox
lies in the phrase “by decision of the emperors and the senate”. As Robert (1977,
18) notes, the plural need not indicate two specific emperors but may refer to
past emperors in a more general sense; the inclusion of the senate (somewhat
unexpected in the context of the early Hadrianic period) also indicates that the
text is not a list of current titles, but an historical overview of past distinctions.
23 Strabon 12.4.7, translated by H.L. Jones.
24 Expositio totius mundi et gentium 49, translation from Foss 1996, 9.
25 Or. 47.17; cf. also Libanios, Or. 61.17: stenôpoi … stoai…. dromoi.
26 Or. 47.16‑17.
27 IK 27.9.
28 Or. 7.22.
29 Cf. also Or. 36.6, where Dion uses the sorry state of Borysthenes’ walls to illustrate
the plight of the city, within which the inhabitants struggle to preserve the last
remnants of paideia and urbanitas.
30 Chr.Pasch. 475 (Dindorf). It is not quite clear from the passage (and may not have
been clear to the compiler of the Chronikon) whether both cities received new
markets, tetraplateiai and walls. A Hadranic reconstruction of Nikaia’s gates is
epigraphically attested, but there is no comparable supporting evidence for the
walls of Nikomedia.
31 Ammianus, 31.1.4.
32 Dörner 1941, 24‑26.
33 Orosius, Historiae adversum Paganos 6.2.23.
34 Strabon, 12.4.7.
35 The extension will have taken place between the terminus post quem of Strabo’s
description and the terminus ante quem provided by the Flavian inscriptions on
the north and east gates, dedicated in the proconsulate of M. Plancius Varus
(Şahin 1978). A fragment of a monumental architrave discovered in 1986 in the
south-eastern sector of the walls bears an inscription in honour of the Flavian
emperors, dated to Domitian’s fifth consulate, March 78 to January 79 (Adak
2001; SEG 51 (2001) no. 1709). The eccentric position of the intersection at the Aya
Sofya Camii in relation to the present defensive circuit suggests that the walled
area was extended on three sides, but – for obvious reasons – not towards the
lake; in that case, the inscription of AD 78/79 could belong to the south gate.
The present south gate is partially constructed from re-used blocks, which may
originate from an earlier, Flavian gate.
36 IK 9.29‑30. For a discussion of the inscription, see note 22.
37 Körte 1899, 398.
38 Schneider & Karnapp 1938, 26 and plate 19b.
39 Schneider & Karnapp 1938, 2‑3.
40 Schneider & Karnapp 1938, 24.
41 The third-century foundation courses of the eastern and northeastern wall are
replete with large, squared stone blocks, resembling those used to construct
“Tor 6”. These are more likely to originate from the Hellenistic phase than from
Schneider’s hypothetical Hadrianic wall.
42 IK 9.25‑28.
5. Political Institutions
The nature of Roman Law

In the cities of the Roman Empire, urban administration and finances were
regulated within the legal framework that we conventionally refer to as Roman
Law. In the traditional and still prevalent view, Roman law is a legal system that
is studied on the basis of the legal texts handed down to us from antiquity.
This view, which jurists would call a “positivistic” conception of Roman
Law, stresses the similarities between Roman Law and modern legal systems
based on the principles of equality before the law, predictability, equity and
clarity. It has the advantage that we can confidently use legal reasoning and
analogy to fill the lacunae of our legal sources. If we know which precepts
applied in one case or place, we assume that they also apply to other similar
situations elsewhere or in other periods of Roman history. That was the ap-
proach of Theodor Mommsen – himself a trained jurist – when in his Römisches
Staatsrecht (1887), he reconstructed the governmental structure of the Imperium
Romanum. The picture of an empire with a more or less uniform pattern of
local and provincial administration that Mommsen and his pupils drew has
often been challenged, but some basic assumptions of the Mommsenian model
still underlie many studies of provincial administration.
Another approach stresses the nature of Roman law as practice, encompass-
ing not only the legal texts themselves but the social context in which they
are applied. This context includes unwritten rules, established practice, social
discrimination, prejudice and even injustice pure and simple. As Elisabeth
Meyer has expressed it, in this view, the world of Roman law was “enjoyably
corrupt … old Sicily rather than modern Zurich”.1
This is closer to the legal philosophy known as “realism”. Carried to its
extreme, realism claims that the law of any society is essentially the shared
ideology of its judges. Such ideas were not entirely foreign to Roman legal
minds. In a decree of AD 426, it was laid down that in the event of a dispute
over an obscure point of law, the writings of five important jurists should
be consulted, and where they disagreed, the majority view should prevail.2
The application of Roman law was thus reduced, if not to the shared ideol-
ogy of its judges, at least to the shared ideology of its leading interpreters.
A second important aspect of Roman law is that the outcome of a decision
depends not only on the what of the matter, but on the who and where. The
law explicitly allowed for discrimination between social groups (before
212, citizens and peregrini; after 212, honestiores and humiliores) and local,
pre-Roman codes and practices continued to apply in civil suits between
provincials. Administrative structures varied from one province to the next
and while there are many common points and obvious analogies between
local administration in different parts of the Empire, one cannot assume that
because a rule is known to have applied in a specific case, it also applied
at the other end of Rome’s vast imperium, or at the other end of the social
scale. In this respect, Rome was no different from other empires of antiquity.
Even in the Ptolemaic kingdom, arguably the most highly centralised and
bureaucratised state of the ancient world, there were significant organisa-
tional differences in the administration of the different overseas dependen-
cies, reflecting the persistence of pre-existing power structures and the need
to cooperate with local elites.3
Roman annexation and the Lex Pompeia

The task of restoring civilian administration and creating a lex provinciae for
the combined territories of Bithynia and Pontus fell to the victorious Roman
commander, Pompey the Great. The title of his provincial code, the lex Pom-
peia, is known to us from two references in the letters of Pliny,4 but no part of
its text has been preserved. For an idea of its scope and provisions, we must
look to other provincial codes of the Republican period. The outlines of the
lex Rupilia for Sicily, enacted c. 130 BC, are fairly well known to us thanks to
Cicero’s prosecution of the Sicilian governor C. Verres on a charge de repetun-
dis in 70 BC. From the references in the Verrine orations, almost contemporary
with the lex Pompeia, we can infer that the Rupilian code encompassed judicial
and administrative matters as well as local government. The same subjects
were covered by the Lex de Gallia Cisalpina of 49 BC, of which a fragment has
been preserved.5
The references to the lex provinciae in Pliny’s Letters give us an impression
of its scope and content. The provincial code established a framework for
inter-polis relations and the administration and political life of the individual
poleis, but large areas of daily life continued to be regulated by the laws and
codes of the individual cities.
The lex Pompeia could not and did not redefine every aspect of provincial
life.6 Property rights, and no doubt many other areas of civil law, continued to
be governed by the laws of the individual cities or of the erstwhile Bithynian
kingdom. Local codes remained in force well into the second century: Tra-
jan advises Pliny that outstanding debts to the cities are to be claimed “by
reference to the laws of each city”7 and half a century later, the jurist Gaius
comments on the Lex Bithynorum, “the law of the Bithynians” regulating the
conditions under which women may enter into contractual obligations.8
Inscriptions constitute another important source for municipal administra-
tion, but most of the extant inscriptions deal with honorific decrees, statues in
Political Institutions 63
Fig. 17. The east (Lefke) gate of Nikaia,

seen from the outside. In its original con-
dition, the gate was adorned with statues
of the Roman governor and the imperial
family. (author’s photo).
honour of the ruler or leading citizens, dedications to the gods or memorials

to the deceased. That local administration also involved many day-to-day,
hard-core political and judicial decisions is indicated by the analogy of the
Rupilian code and confirmed by the municipal orations of Dion.
In the republican period and under the early empire, an incoming mag-
istrate had authority to issue an edict laying out the guidelines by which he
intended to apply the laws within his sphere of authority. The best known
example of a “magistrate’s edict” – known in Latin as ius honorarium, i.e. rules
laid down by virtue of the authority vested in an office (honos) – is that of
the urban praetor at Rome.9 While the praetor could not promulgate laws in
the strict sense, by means of the edict he could “fill in” the broad framework
provided by laws (leges), senatus consulta etc. Due to practical considerations
and traditional Roman respect for mos maiorum, the edict of each new praetor
tended to resemble that of his predecessor, and under Hadrian the practice
of issuing new praetor’s edicts annually was abolished.
A provincial governor’s authority within his province was similar to that
of a magistrate at Rome, and he was likewise expected to issue an edict laying
out the general principles of his administration. From Cicero’s correspondence
as governor of Cilicia, we know that among other matters, the governor’s edict
set the maximum interest on a loan; also, that just as the urban praetor looked
to his predecessors for inspiration, so Cicero based his proconsular edict on
that issued by the eminent jurist Q. Mucius Scaevola Pontifex as governor of

Asia in the 90’s BC.10
It would be interesting to know if the limitations on the urban praetor’s
discretionary powers set by Hadrian were matched by a similar erosion of
the provincial governor’s authority to legislate by edict. Whereas Cicero had
been free to fix maximum interest rates within his province – and to bend
them when necessary to accommodate Roman speculators11 – Pliny felt com-
pelled to obtain the emperor’s consent in a similar matter.12 Perhaps in the
intervening 150 years, the competence of the provincial governors to rule by
edict had gradually been circumscribed in the same manner as that of the
urban praetor.
The relationship of a city to its provincial governor was highly asymmetri-
cal. In his oration 46, Dion likens the relation of the governor to the cities to that
of a schoolmaster to his pupils.13 In later orations, he emphasizes how disunity
within or among the cities plays into the hands of the governor14 – but given
Dion’s eclectic style of argumentation and ambivalent attitude to Roman rule
in general, we cannot conclude the converse, that a united front by the cities
would pose any serious opposition to the authority of the governor.
It was possible to short-circuit the authority of the governor in a variety of
different ways. One was through an imperial procurator, whose de facto power
might in some respects be on a par with that of the legate, even if formally
and socially, he ranked far lower. Maximus, an ex-slave who had advanced
to the post of imperial procurator, passed through Bithynia et Pontus on his
way to purchase corn supplies in Paphlagonia. Pliny assigned him an escort
of ten beneficiarii, the same as, acting on Trajan’s instructions, he had earlier
provided for another procurator. Maximus, however, insisted on a further
six soldiers; Pliny reluctantly supplied him with five (three foot soldiers and
two horsemen) and subsequently wrote to Trajan requesting instructions “for
similar cases in the future”. In his reply, Trajan confirmed that Maximus had
been entitled to the extra escort.15
Another avenue was through a direct personal lien between the emperor
and a provincial citizen, an influential equestrian, a senator or an intellectual.16
Dion, as we shall see, claimed to enjoy the “attention”, spoudê, of the reigning
emperor, and to have used this influence for the benefit of his native city.17 In
oration 45, speaking about irregularities at a municipal election, Dion claims
that if the proconsul should refuse to intervene, Dion could write directly to
the emperor and make him take action.18
Emperor and senate

In 27 BC, the Roman provinces were divided between the Emperor and the
Senate.19 Broadly speaking, the division followed the disposition of the army.
In those provinces where few or no troops were stationed, the Senate retained
the right to appoint the provincial governor, while those provinces that were
threatened by internal unrest or external aggression, and consequently housed

large contingents of troops, were administered by the emperor himself; so
was Egypt. Augustus thus gained direct control of the army command and
the corn supply, two factors crucial to the survival of his regime.
In the “senatorial” provinces, the senate continued to appoint governors
from the ranks of ex-magistrates, selected in the traditional manner by draw-
ing lots, and holding office for a single year. Nominally, the emperor was
governor of all “imperial” provinces, exerting his authority through legati –
literally, “deputies” – appointed by himself. Unlike senatorial governors,
their term of office was not fixed but could be extended or terminated at the
emperor’s discretion.
Although as the local representative of the ruling power, a governor had
great authority, his formal powers were not unlimited; for instance, he could
not pass a capital sentence on a Roman citizen. Within his province, he had to
work within the framework laid down in the lex provinciae and (in the impe-
rial provinces) the mandatum principis granted him as the emperor’s deputy.
Thus, his primary tasks were to apply existing laws and regulations and to
make discretionary decisions in minor matters that were not covered by any
existing rules. If there was doubt about how to deal with a matter, the gov-
ernor was expected to consult the emperor, who would make his decision
known in the form of a rescript.
The essential distinction between one category of provinces and the other
was the right to appoint the governor. In most other respects, the difference
between senatorial and imperial governors was not great. For instance, de-
spite their formal status as imperial deputies, the imperial legates could be
prosecuted de repetundis (see p. 86) on the same basis as senatorial gover-
nors.20 The emperor’s rulings applied in the senatorial provinces, and decrees
passed by the senate applied to imperial provinces as well. If the emperor
felt that a province required particular attention, he might ask the senate to
select a specific candidate citra sortem, “outside the lot”, or take it on himself
to select the governor, with or without the consent of the senate.21 Provinces
were frequently transferred from one category to another; for instance, the
Hellenophile emperor Nero took control of Achaia, but the province reverted
to the senate under Vespasian.22
Under the terms established in 27 BC, Bithynia et Pontus became a sena-
torial province, but at intervals, the emperor assumed control. The first oc-
casion was in AD 18‑19 when Germanicus visited the province. Tiberius had
granted his adopted son the imperium proconsulare maius in the eastern prov-
inces, and on his way to take up command of the Syrian legions, Germanicus
visited Bithynia et Pontus. In the words of Tacitus, the imperial prince “re-
stored order to those provinces which suffered from internal discord or the
injustice of magistrates”.23 Bithynia et Pontus was an imperial province for a
short period of Trajan’s reign and again under Hadrian, as evidenced by the
occurrence of imperial legati interspersed among the proconsular fasti of the
province.24 Finally, at some point in the reign of Antoninus Pius, the province
was permanently transferred to the group of imperial provinces.
It used to be thought that Pliny was especially selected by the emperor and
sent to Bithynia with a mission to clean up conditions in Pontus et Bithynia
after the chaos created by his predecessors. According to another theory, he
was sent to his province with authority as corrector to set the chaotic finances
of the cities in order.25 There is little real evidence in the extant sources for
either interpretation, based on uncritical acceptance of the image of himself
that Pliny attempts to project in his Letters.26 If the new governor had to face
real unrest in the province, Trajan would hardly have chosen a candidate
without previous experience in provincial administration.27 The notion that
Pliny had special powers is belied by the numerous cases in which he con-
sults the emperor on comparatively minor matters;28 and while the finances
of the Bithynian and Pontic cities were in far from perfect order, there is
no reason to believe that they were significantly worse than elsewhere.29 In
fact, the reason for Trajan’s choice of Pliny as governor may have been pre-
cisely his lack of distinctive qualities or opinions, making him acceptable to
everyone or at least offensive to no one.30 Transfer of provinces from senate
to emperor or vice versa was a common enough occurrence in the first and
second centuries AD and in itself unexceptional.31 When a senatorial prov-
ince was taken over by the emperor, however, the transfer was sometimes
accompanied by a face-saving measure, as when Nero granted Sardinia to the
senate in return for Achaia.32 We might imagine that out of a similar respect
for senatorial sensibilities, Trajan, when selecting a governor for Bithynia et
Pontus, would look for a middle-of-the-road candidate whose background
was senatorial and civilian, rather than imperial and military. From that point
of view, Pliny was an obvious choice, with the further attraction that from his
recent involvement in several trials de repetundis, he would be familiar with
the legal and administrative structure of Bithynia et Pontus.
Civic self-government
In any Bithynian city, local government involved a significant proportion of
the free male population, who at a given time would be serving either as city
councillors for life, or in one of the numerous magistracies and minor offices
at municipal or local level.
In the Hellenistic period, the cities had governed themselves within the
limits set by the laws of the kingdom and the authority of the royal epistates.
The structure of local government had three nodes: the archontate, the city
council (boulê) and the popular assembly (ekklêsia). Though we have no di-
rect evidence to this effect, it is likely that as in other Greek cities, the boulê of
Hellenistic Nikaia, Nikomedia or Prusa was composed of councillors elected
annually by the assembly or in electoral districts corresponding to the phylai.
The functions of the early Bithynian boulai are equally poorly documented,
but, in accordance with Greek tradition, their primary purpose is likely to

have been probouleutic, i.e. to draft, examine and approve the proposals that
were to be placed before the assembly.
The Pompeian code transformed the composition of the city councils. From
now on, ex-magistrates were entitled to a seat on the council, retaining it until
they died, resigned or were struck off the register by the censor (timêtês). The
code also established a minimum age of thirty years for holding a magistracy
or a seat in the council.33 At the time when the Pompeian code was promul-
gated, 30 years was the minimum age for holding a quaestorship in Rome.
Augustus later lowered the age threshold for a Roman magistracy and likewise
reduced the minimum age for an urban magistracy in Bithynia.34
In formal terms, Pompey’s redefinition of the city council was a sharp
break with the Greek traditions of civic democracy.35 In practice, by the late
Hellenistic period nearly every city found itself under a de facto Honoratio-
renregime where the municipal offices and magistracies were monopolized
by a small minority of wealthy citizens, the “notables” or “honoratiores”.
The restricted membership introduced by the Pompeian code was a de jure
affirmation of the existing situation.
Elsewhere in the Empire, there was a census requirement for city council-
lors; in Pliny’s native Comum, the threshold stood at 100,000 HS.36 In Pliny’s
Ep. 10.79, the qualifications for Bithynian council membership are discussed
in some detail and since a property qualification is not mentioned here, it was
clearly not part of the Pompeian code. Property requirements may, however,
have been laid down in the codes of individual cities, just as cities are known
to have imposed entrance fees for new councillors.37 The two Prusan town
councillors whose financial situation is known to us, Flavius Archippos and
Dion, both possessed fortunes in excess of 100,000 HS.
The formalisation of the timocratic principle apparently aroused little
opposition, and in the early second century an elitist discourse is shared by
the self-proclaimed champion of Greek values, Dion, and his counterpart,
the Roman governor Pliny. One describes the council as “the soundest and
most intelligent” part of the city’s inhabitants38 and the other notes that “it is
preferable to admit sons from good families to the council, rather than from
the common people”.39 Being royal foundations, the Bithynian cities were
probably less self-conscious about their democratic heritage than the formerly
independent city and island states of the Aegean.
Concurrently and as a consequence of the changed composition of the
city council, its political role and relation to the ekklêsia was also transformed.
The social standing of its members and the fact that the council united al-
most all the powerful and wealthy men of the city meant that in addition
to its probouleutic function, it was often the real locus of decision-making.
For instance, when Dion refuses the offer of an archontate,40 he is apparently
speaking in the boulê, not in the ekklêsia. Though the actual election presum-
ably took place in the assembly, the candidates were apparently selected and
approved by the council: perhaps only one candidate for each vacant position,
for the ekklêsia to approve or reject.41
How many seats were there in the boulê? In the west, Roman city councils
were generally set at 100 members, sometimes even less.42 Greek city councils
of the Hellenistic period were much larger – the Athenian boulê counted 500
members – and when they passed under Roman rule, Greek cities apparently
retained the tradition of large city councils. Figures ranging from 200 to 600
members are known,43 but unfortunately none of these refer to a Bithynian
city.44 In the larger urban communities such as Nikaia and Nikomedia, a
council of 300 or 400 members is quite possible. Prusa originally had a smaller
council, later increased by the addition of an extra 100 members, bringing it
up to the same size as the others.45 The number of councillors in the individual
cities was not laid down in the Pompeian code,46 but in the city’s charter. If
a city wanted to increase the size of its council, however, the approval of the
Roman authorities had to be obtained. Where the number of ex-magistrates
exceeded the number of seats in the boulê, the most junior candidates presum-
ably had to wait for a vacancy to occur.47
Among the bouleutai, individual status was determined by previous magis-
tracies and seniority. Writing in the third century AD, Ulpian explains how, if
the city’s own laws do not specify otherwise, the list (album) of council mem-
bers should be drawn up according to the rank of the magistracies held and
secondly, within each category, on the basis of seniority.48 When the council
was in session, members would speak in the same order.49
In some cities of the Empire, new councillors were required to pay a fee,
the honorarium decurionatus, on election to the council. From a letter of Pliny,
we learn that there was no such requirement in the Pompeian code nor in the
charters of the Bithynian cities. By Pliny’s time, however, it had apparently
become customary for certain categories of councillors to pay an entrance fee
of 4000 to 8000 HS. This applied to supernumerary councillors and to coun-
cillors appointed a censoribus, i.e. to those who had not held any magistracy.
Pliny proposed to formalize and systematize this practice by means of an
imperial decree that all city councillors must pay a fixed sum on first taking
their seat in the council. The emperor, however, refused to issue a general
edict, preferring to leave the matter to the individual cities.50
It has been claimed that only citizens who already held a seat in the coun-
cil could be candidates for the higher magistracies,51 a situation analogous to
that in Rome, where only senators could stand for election to the praetorship
or consulate. In Bithynia, there is no evidence for a formal requirement to
this effect,52 and it would hardly be in a city’s interest to restrict the field of
candidates for the higher liturgies, such as the agonothesia.53 In practice, the
majority of those known to have held an archontate had previously filled one
or more of the minor magistracies.
Liturgies
The concept of leitourgia was as familiar to any ancient observer of local politics
as it is strange to modern eyes. Its essence was that a man elected to public
office was required to cover a part, or all, of the expenses involved out of his
own pockets, and it forms part of the larger complex of social and political
relations known as euergetism, where the munificence and benefactions of the
elite serve to legitimize an elite monopoly of political leadership. Paul Veyne’s
classic study Le pain et le cirque traces the development of euergetism from its
origins in the classical Greece to the Roman period. For Veyne, liturgies and
honorarium decurionatus form a sub-category of euergetism, “évergétisme ob
honorem”.54
Not all public offices were liturgies, and in theory there was a distinction
in terminology between a leitourgia proper, where the holder was expected to
contribute out of his own pockets, and an archê, where he was not.55 In the real
world, the divide between the two was not clear-cut, and the relation between
leitourgia and archê was rather in the nature of a sliding scale or continuum.
At one extreme we find the liturgies strictu sensu, e.g. the choregiate of clas-
sical Athens. In later times, the prevalent form may have been the “mixed”
liturgy where basic costs were defrayed by the public chest but the liturgist
was expected to pay the remainder (for instance, the city might cover the cost
of arranging a series of athletic games, but the agonothete would pay for the
prizes). Lower on the scale was the honorary archê, not requiring any financial
contribution by the holder, and finally the paid archê where the office-holder
received a salary from the city. Within this basic framework, we encounter
numerous variations and combinations. For instance, a city clerk (grammateus)
of Priene who was entitled to a salary served for 14 years without claiming
it, thus saving the city a substantial sum and transforming an archê into a
quasi-liturgy.56
As Quass reminds us,57 “mixed” liturgies often had their background in
the prosaic fact that the public funds allocated for a given purpose were in-
sufficient to cover the costs; hence the liturgist had to make up the difference.
Obviously, the relation between city revenues and expenditure would vary
from place to place, and an office that in one city required no outlay on the
part of the office-holder might be a burdensome liturgy in the neighbouring
community.58 To ease the burden and facilitate the entry of young men into
the political class, junior liturgies, such as gymnasiarch or agoranomos, could
sometimes be held for less than a full year, or jointly by several persons.59 From
the survey of Quass, it is also clear that the sums involved varied greatly from
city to city. Some of the liturgies and benefactions recorded in Ephesos were
on a very grand scale, but then Ephesos was among the leading cities in one
of the Empire’s richest provinces, while its large population meant that there
would be numerous contenders for vacant liturgies. In most Asian cities, the
liturgies may have been on a much more modest scale, but the inscriptional
evidence is skewed in favour of the larger and exceptional liturgies, which

were more likely to be recorded.60
Urban revenues and finances

In the Roman provinces of the early empire, taxation operated on two levels.
The collection of the taxes due to the imperial treasury61 was supervised by
the provincial governor62 and carried out by private tax-farmers (publicani)
or, increasingly, through the magistrates of the cities.63 Thanks to the dubi-
ous political activities of some tax-farmers in the last century of the Republic
and the New Testament’s references to “publicans and sinners”,64 Roman
tax-farming has come to be associated with greed and corruption. However,
the tax-farming system, which built on Hellenistic precedents, was perhaps
no less efficient than taxation through the cities,65 nor were the tax-farmers
always detested by the local taxpayers.66
We are less well informed about tax collection at the level of the individual
cities, though enough evidence survives to show that city tax regimes were
often quite complex.67 Taxes formed only a part of the city’s revenue, and of
these, again, only a part were “general” taxes that could be spent at the dis-
cretion of the magistrates. Much city income was earmarked, either because
it derived from a tax levied for a specific purpose, or from an endowment or
trust, i.e. a sum set aside for a specific purpose by the donor or testator. The
institution of the endowment or trust was widespread in the Roman world;68
it reappears in Islamic law as the wakf or vakif.
Apart from taxes, bequests and endowments, a city would draw some
revenue from its landholdings, from the lease of public property (e.g., market
stalls, grazing rights on public land) and from interest on capital. Cities could
also levy a toll (portorium) on trade passing through its port or territory, but
there is no certain evidence for this tax in any Bithynian city.69 Furthermore,
many cities struck coins for local circulation. Since bronze issues were fidu-
ciary, i.e. the nominal value of the coin was greater than its metal value, the
production of bronze coinage was a source of profit for the city.
Under the early Empire, the relationship between these revenues and the
current expenses of the city will have been stable and predictable. The main
weakness of the trust system was that it was largely cash-based and thus
vulnerable to inflation. When the coinage was debased in the course of the
third century, trust funds were eroded to a fraction of their former value or
ceased to function altogether. Income from landholdings and leases were less
vulnerable in this respect.
Thanks to the system of trusts and endowments, numerous items of urban
income and expenditure were directly linked. When revenues exceeded ex-
penditure, a surplus was accumulated in the fund (for example, at Prusa, less
than expected was spent on the oil for the gymnasts, perhaps because the run-
down gymnasium attracted fewer visitors than when it was new; the surplus
accumulated in the oil fund70) and when expenditure exceeded the resources
available, a liturgist might be required to cover the shortfall.
Tasks covered by endowments or earmarked taxes did not affect the city’s
finances, but apart from these, there remained a large number of routine ex-
penditures for the upkeep of public buildings and city walls, maintenance of
aqueducts and public wells, fuel for the baths, food and clothing for the city’s
slaves, writing materials for the city administration, entertainment for visiting
notables, travelling expenses for delegates and embassies, sacrificial animals
and sundry other items. Much of the actual work involved, for instance in
cleaning aqueducts and wells, would of course be performed by city-owned
slaves rather than wage labourers, and thus required no cash outlay.71
The least predictable item of expenditure, and the one most often cited as a
cause of financial distress, was public construction projects. It was exceptional
for a city to find a single benefactor capable of financing an entire project from
his own resources. (The building activity of the sophist Flavius Damianos in
Ephesos is one such exception, that of Herodes Atticus in Athens another).
A major construction project had to be financed either from public funds,72
from a combination of public funds and private contributions73 or from the
joint contributions of a number of private benefactors.74 In the last two cases,
the contributors were expected to make a solemn declaration (pollicitatio) of
their intent to contribute.
If the cost of construction exceeded the original estimate, or if the contribu-
tors failed to make good on their promises, the city faced a serious financial
problem. In the Digest, a whole section De pollicitationibus is devoted to cases
where a private benefactor, having made a formal promise, fails to meet his
obligation.75 The eminent jurists quoted include Pomponius (second century
AD), Ulpian and Modestinus (third century AD) – an indication that this was
a widespread and persistent problem. They agree that when the benefactor
has been honoured by the city in return for a pollicitatio, or the work on his
project has commenced, he is obliged to carry out his promise to its full extent.
If he does not, the obligation can be enforced by the city authorities in the
same way as a debt (debitum), not only against the original donor but against
his heirs.76 Other jurists add that when a pollicitatio is made on account of a
misfortune to the city (e.g., a promise to rebuild a structure that has been
destroyed by fire or earthquake) it is immediately binding.77
Clearly, there was a great deal of unfinished business in the cities of the
Roman Empire; and Bithynia was no exception. In two of Dion’s municipal
speeches, we hear about a colonnade that is under construction in Prusa but
has not yet been completed, because – or so he claims – Dion’s fellow-con-
tributors have not yet lived up to their promises. To keep the work going, the
city has been forced to advance money from the public treasury.78
In Nikaia, Pliny found a half-rebuilt gymnasium and an incomplete the-
atre.79 The theatre itself was under construction at the city’s expense; embellish-
ments such as colonnades and galleries were to be paid by private subscription
(ex privatorum pollicitationibus) but the donors were naturally reluctant to pay
before the core structure had been completed, especially since – or so it was
alleged80 – the foundations were showing signs of stress. Nikaia’s neighbours
and rivals were not far behind: the Nikomedians had two unfinished aque-
ducts to show for a public investment of 3.5 million HS.81
In Nikomedia, the problem was not unreliable sponsors but a lack of tech-
nicians with the skills required to plan and execute a major construction project
such as an aqueduct – and to estimate its cost. The first attempt had proved
abortive due to poor surveying work, the second had overrun its budget well
before it was completed. Conditions in Prusa were no better, and in his first
letters from the province, basing himself on his inspection of the Prusan ac-
counts, Pliny reported that “substantial sums of money could … be recovered
from contractors of public works if we had dependable surveys.”82
This problem was not a new one, nor limited to Bithynia.83 In the prologue
to the last book of his De architectura (last century BC), Vitruvius discusses the
notorious unreliability of cost estimates for private as well as public building
projects. He relates how the city of Ephesos had an “ancient law” (lex vetusta)
setting out “hard, but fair” conditions: When assuming responsibility for a
public building project, the architect must provide a cost estimate. If this es-
timate is accepted by the city authorities, the architect’s property is taken as
surety until the building is finished. If the cost corresponds to the original
estimate, the architect is honoured by a decree of the city; should it exceed the
estimate by less than 25 %, this excess will be paid by the city treasury; but if
the overrun is more than one-fourth of the estimate, the architect is liable for
the remainder. Vitruvius approvingly remarks that if such quasi-Draconian
measures were employed everywhere, “householders would not be induced
to endless additional payments leading to the loss of their fortunes.84
Prusa’s track record of urban finance was not impressive. Early in the
city’s history, Prusa was unable to meet the debts incurred to cover current
expenses.85 The Prusans may also have been careless about spending money
on construction projects; from one of Dion’s orations, we learn that “earlier”
(i.e. prior to AD 96) a governor sent the Prusans a rescript concerning city
administration (dioikêsis), apparently authorizing some major building project
that was never completed.86 It was probably no coincidence that the first major
task taken up by Pliny as governor was to inspect the municipial accounts
of Prusa.87 Apparently the finances of the Bithynian cities improved over
time, for towards the end of the century, we find an Ephesian, M. Aurelius
Mindius Matidianus Pollio, holding the post of permanent logistês (curator)
of Nikaia, Nikomedia and Prusa concurrently with his main job as overseer
of harbour dues in the province of Asia. This arrangement lasted for thirty
years, an indication that during this period, the logistês of the three Bithynian
cities had no great workload.88
City magistracies
Because office-holding had originally been a prerogative of the propertied élite
and remained – through the instition of leitourgeia – associated with positive
social behaviour such as generosity and euergetism, urban political offices
were important success markers in the social agôn and as such, recorded on
the funerary inscriptions that summarized an individual’s life achievements
and form our main source for individual careers. This is perhaps easily un-
derstood in the case of leading urban magistracies such as the archontate, but
as the story of Pythias the agoranome (below, p. 76) illustrates, junior magis-
trates took pride in their office as well, as did the elected officers of the city
wards or phylai. The sense of prestige attached to office-holding at the level
of the polis percolated outwards and downwards through society and found
expression in a general Titelfreude. The phylê organisation, the gerousia and the
gymnasium each had their leading officers, recorded with their names and
titles.89 Religious communities, such as the followers of Mithras, had their
hierarchy of ranks and offices. Even a small fishing collective in Parion on
the Hellespont possessed a formal hierarchy of officers, recorded in a joint
dedication to Priapos. The archon heads the list, followed by diktyarchountes
and lembarchountes (net-masters and boat-masters), lookouts, fish-watchers,
a cork-float-operator, the pilots and the antigraphos (secretary); finally and
clearly set apart from the rest, the anonymous synnautai (boatmen).90
This adds up to an impressive total of some twenty officers in all, but the
names reveal that several junior officers are sons of the archôn and the whole
operation appears to have been dominated by one family of freedman origin.
Given that so many members were bound by family ties, a formal organiza-
tion seems superfluous. Yet the collective had a formal internal organiza-
tion modelled on that of the polis, either because that was the only form of
organization known to them or because titles and offices had an attraction
in themselves.
The archons
At the head of the city administration, we find the archons, hoi archôntes, lit-
erally “the leaders”. Their number varied from city to city; Nikaia had three,
Prusias ad Hypium had five.91 One of these was the first or senior archon,
prôtos archôn.92 According to Fernoux, the archons of Nikaia constituted a
“bureau” which also included the city grammateus and an endikos.93 This is
based on a single inscription from Nikaia94 naming the archons of the year
along with the grammateus and the endikos, but there is no direct evidence in
the text that these five formed a collective.
The archontate was an annual magistracy and could be held several
times. The first archon was normally also the senior archon95 and presum-
ably presided over the meetings of the boulê and the ekklêsia. Being epony-
mous, he would be known to every citizen by name and to most of them
by sight; he was the leading and the most visible figure of the city, if only
for one term.
We have little information about the liturgic aspects of the archontate.
Though archons elsewhere could and did function as benefactors of their
city,96 there is no evidence that the archons of Bithynian cities were required
to contribute on a large scale or a regular basis.
The agonothete
On the other hand, the agônothetês or magistrate in charge of the agônes was
expected to contribute significantly towards the costs of his office. Agônes,
athletic contests with associated festivals, were popular in the Greek world
since the Archaic period. Besides the famous festivals in, e.g., Athens, Olympia,
Corinth, Nemea or Delphi, there were numerous minor agônes, often instituted
in honour of a local hero or deity or, from the second century onwards, in
honour of the emperor(s).
For the individual, the agônes provided a welcome diversion from the
tedium of daily life, the kind of diversion that in the West was more often
supplied by gladiatorial games; on the collective level, the agônes provided a
venue for the inter-city rivalry and competition typical of the Greek world. In
the Classical and Hellenistic periods, many poleis granted a victorious athlete
the privilege of free meals for the rest of his life; in the Roman period, the
winner could still, at the very least, expect a hero’s welcome in his home city.97
The continued popularity of agônes is also attested by the will of Julius Largus,
a wealthy Pontic citizen, who left a large bequest to be used “either for the
erection of public buildings” or for “establishing quinquennial games”.98
The games that Largus envisaged were to be held in honour of the em-
peror, and all agônes had a similar aspect, being ostensibly held in honour of
the reigning emperor, a deity, a deified emperor or a hero.99 In this respect,
the duties of the agonothetês are comparable with those of other cultic officials,
but in addition, the agonothesia required administrative and organisational
skills,100 since an athletic festival was a major event covering several days
and requiring advance planning for the events themselves, for the logistics
involved in supplying the spectators and the athletes, and not least for the
reception of important guests during the festival. The total cost was consider-
able. Some of the expenses would be covered by the city or by special funds
such as the one that Pliny was asked to set up; others would fall to the ago-
nothete himself, who thus had at one and the same time to enjoy the trust
of his fellow-citizens and be a man of considerable means. Since he would
be chairing the proceedings throughout the festival and acting as host to the
guests of honour, the agonothete must also be a skilled public speaker and
possess social and diplomatic skills. In short, a successful agonothete required
all the skills of a successful politician.
The agoranomos
For an aspiring local politician, the first step on the political ladder was often
the position of agoranomos.101 In classical Athens, the task of the agoranomoi
was to maintain order and trading standards in the marketplace.102 In the Ath-
enaiôn Politeia, Aristotle lists the magistrates in charge of the city’s markets: ten
agoranomoi (five each for Athens and Piraeus), ten metronomoi or inspectors of
weights and measures, 35 sitophylakes or overseers of the grain trade and ten
port superintendents “to compel merchants to bring two-thirds of the grain
that they import into the city’s market”. The large number of agoranomoi and
the selection by lot indicate that the office was no liturgy.103
It is significant that of the sixty-five market officers enumerated by Aris-
totle, the majority are concerned with the supply of grain. In later times, the
supply of grain and other staples remained a chief concern of the cities, and
the existence of a separate office concerned with the grain supply is attested in
the Bithynian cities as late as the third century AD. From Nikomedia we have
the fragmentary sarcophagus of the city councillor Aurelius Eu… Katyl…,
who, among other offices, had been sitônês, i.e. grain trade commissioner,
and also served as treasurer of the city council;104 in Nikaia, an inscription
(fig. 31) honours Fl. Severianus Asklepiodotos, who served as argyrotamias tôn
sitônikôn chrêmatôn, “treasurer of the grain fund”.105 So far no similar inscrip-
tion has been recorded from Prusa, and there is some doubt if and when this
city possessed a corresponding fund. In the seventies AD, it clearly did not;
but one may have been established at a later date.106
In cases where the grain supply failed and prices rose sharply, an ago-
ranome is known to have intervened, buying grain on his own account and
reselling it at lower prices.107 These are probably exceptional cases of euerget-
ism, over and above an agoranome’s liturgical obligations, and commemo-
rated in our sources as such. Indeed, in these cases we may surmise that a
rich and already well established citizen has taken the post of agoranome
upon himself in an emergency.108 An agoranome might also donate marble
tables for the vendors,109 undertake repairs to existing structures110 or finance
additional ones.111
Obviously, not every agoranome found himself with a major food shortage
or a dilapidated market on his hands. In most towns, the post of agoranomos
will have been among the less financially onerous magistracies, within reach of
young men entering on a municipal career. In some cities, perhaps to facilitate
the entry of aspiring politicians into the municipal cursus, the obligations of
the agoranomos were made less burdensome by reducing the term of office
to two or four months, or appointing more than one agoranome (Olbia on
the northern Black Sea had five, Halikarnassos had nine). On the other hand,
it was no sinecure: during his term of office the agoranomos had to be present
in the agora on trading days.
In the Metamorphoses, Apuleius draws a character sketch of a small-town
agoranomos (whom Apuleius, writing in Latin, identifies as an aedilis). Lucius,
the narrator, has just arrived in Hypata, the leading town of Thessaly. He goes
to buy food in the market, macellum, and finds many kinds of fish on sale. After
haggling for a while with an old fishmonger over a fish priced at one hun-
dred sesterces he gets it for eighty. Leaving the market, he runs into Pythias,
a schoolfellow from Athens, who has embarked on a municipal career:
“Congratulations, Pythias! I see that you have attendants and the

rods of office and the dress of a magistrate.”
“I am administrator of food supplies and market inspector [aedi-
lis], and if you wish to buy any food I am at your service”. “No
thanks”, I replied, since I had already provided quite enough fish
for supper. But Pythias saw my basket and shook the fish up so
that he could see them more clearly. “How much did you pay for
this rubbish?” he asked. “I just managed to twist a fishmonger’s
arm and he let them go at twenty denarii,” I answered.
When he heard this, he instantly grabbed my hand and led me
back to the food market. “And from which of these merchants,”
he asked, “did you buy that junk?” I pointed to a little old man
sitting in a corner, and Pythias immediately began to harangue
him in an extremely harsh tone, befitting the authority of his office
as market inspector. “Look at you!” he shouted. “You do not
even spare my friends, or indeed any visitors to this place. You
mark up worthless fish at high prices, and you are reducing this
flower of Thessaly to the semblance of a rocky wasteland by the
price of your wares. But you will not get away with it, for now
I will show you how wrongdoers shall be restrained while I am
magistrate.” Then he turned the basket out onto the pavement
and ordered his bailiff to trample on the fish and crush them to
a pulp with his feet.
Content with his display of law and order, my friend Pythias
advised me to be off, saying “I am pleased, Lucius, to have shown
that old fool who is in charge here.”112
The story of Lucius’ encounter with his friend turns on the contrast between
form, symbol and self-perception on the one hand, reality on the other: the
friend offers to “help” but leaves Lucius in a worse position than before; as
a symbol of the magistrate’s power, the presence of the lictor with the rods
highlights the impuissance of Pythias, who can do no more than heap abuse
on the fishmonger; Pythias solemnly declares that “wrongdoers” shall suffer
the full force of the law, but it is the fish that end up under the lictor’s soles
and the innocent buyer who is punished by the loss of his dinner; the aedile
sees himself as a leading figure in the city, but his office ranks among the
junior magistracies and is perhaps only held for a few months.
That the post of agoranomos nonetheless had a certain prestige value was
due to the fact that, like the archontate, it included a judicial aspect. The lic-
tor accompanying Pythias was not entirely ornamental. An agoranomos was
permitted to use force to maintain order in the marketplace, and was expected
to adjudicate or arbitrate in minor disputes between buyer and seller. In other
words, at an early stage in his career, he might demonstrate leadership quali-
ties of an administrative and judicial character, while a later term as agono-
thete would give the chance to demonstrate organizational and diplomatic
skills. It is no coincidence that successful municipal careers often include the
three A’s: agoranomos, agonothete and archon.
Advocates, delegates and ambassadors

High on the list of prestigious offices and potentially onerous liturgies we find
the citizens who are elected to serve as spokesmen of their city in judicial or
diplomatic contexts. These are variously identified in our sources as endikos,
syndikos, proegoros etc. They were typically appointed on an ad hoc basis for
the purpose of a specific embassy to another city or to Rome, to present a
petition to the emperor, or to represent the city in court.
Sending an embassy was expensive – the annual delegation from Chalke-
don, routinely sent to convey the city’s greetings to the emperor, cost 12,000
HS113 – and a wealthy citizen might earn the gratitude of his fellow citizens
if he undertook such a task as a liturgy, paying part or all of the expenses
out of his own pocket. On the other hand, since the success of a diplomatic
mission or a court case would depend on the diplomatic skills, forensic quali-
fications and eloquence of the person chosen to represent the city, the office
would not necessarily go to the most generous liturgist. Dion is an example
of an ambassador presumably chosen for his rhetoric skills and diplomatic
qualifications (i.e., his friendship with the emperor) since he makes no men-
tion of a financial contribution on his own part.
Censors
Alone among the municipal offices of Bithynia, the censorate appears to be a
Roman innovation. The primary task of a censor, timêtês – the word is derived
from timê, “honour” or “value” – was to verify that new council members
fulfilled the formal entrance requirements (free status, citizenship of the city,
minimum age). The censors were also responsible for maintaining the album
or list of councillors. They had authority to strike out persons who were no
longer qualified to sit in the council (e.g., because of immorality, a criminal
offence or infirmity), but not to appoint new members on their own.114 Unlike
their Roman counterparts, who were, inter alia, responsible for putting public
works out for tender, the Bithynian city censors apparently had no authority
in financial matters.
Censors were not elected every year115 but at intervals, probably quinquen-
nially. The formal competence of the censor was limited, but since in effect a
censor was at liberty to pass judgment on any of his peers, and being struck
off the council register endangered a person’s social standing and “face”, the
office will have carried considerable weight. The censors known from Bithynia
are generally men with a distinguished political career including several of
the senior magistracies.
Though the censorate was not a liturgy, as men of wealth and social stand-
ing the censors could, and on occasion did, undertake costly projects for the
benefit or beautification of their cities.116
A related office was that of the politographos, presumably a magistrate
responsible for maintaining the register of citizens. At present, we only have
evidence for this office in Prusias ad Hypium117 and outside Bithynia. The
term boulographos is found in an inscription from Ankyra118 where it appears
to be a synonym for timêtês. A third-century inscription,119 now lost, from the
territory of Kios named an Aurelius Marcianus, boulo[graphos].
Both boulographos and politographos were clearly high-status magistrates, on
a level with the censors (if indeed boulographos is not a synonym for timêtês);
this is quite clear from their careers, which typically include other high-level
posts such as agonothete or Bithyniarch. One also notes that the boulographoi
and politographoi known from Bithynia all hold the Roman franchise. In two
cases,120 the office was held for life, indicating that it was not onerous and
that it was not a liturgy.
The grammateus and minor officials

The status of the grammateus and his relation to the other magistrates is not
quite clear. His main function was apparently to record the proceedings and
decrees of the council and also of the ekklêsia121 and preserve the records for
posterity.122 In all but the smallest urban communities, we may assume that
the grammateus functioned as chef de bureau and that the actual work was
done by trained slaves.123 As overseers of their work, the grammateis had to
be fully literate and have some education; they are typically drawn from the
same group as the agoranomoi.124
From the limited epigraphic evidence for Bithynian grammateis, it is dif-
ficult to judge their social status. At Ephesos in the neighbouring province of
Asia, the grammeteis seem to have been held in high esteem; in the Acts of the
Apostles, the Ephesian grammateus quiets the riotous multitude.125 A century
later, the wealthy sophist Flavius Damianos held the Ephesian grammateia;
during his term of office, he undertook the construction of a new portico from
the Magnesian gate towards the temple of Artemis, as well as other costly
projects. We cannot take it for granted that a grammateus in Prusa (such as T.
Flavius Silôn, see below) or Nikaia enjoyed the same prestige; after all, Ephe-
sos was larger than any of the Bithynian cities, and the Ephesian grammateus
no doubt had a much larger bureau of slaves under his supervision.
While inferior in rank to the archons and other senior magistrates, one
should not underestimate the informal power of minor officials such as the
grammateus, or even of their subordinate functionaries. That some were of
low status or slaves does not exclude them from the sphere of power.126 On
the contrary, being involved in the daily business of the city on a long-term
basis, they would come to know its recent history, its records and its financial
obligations better than the annual magistrates, who had other demands on
their time than politics and would often be absent.
Minor officials also controlled access to the decision-makers. From Rome
itself, we hear of imperial servants taking bribes in return for the chance to
meet the emperor.127 At the provincial level, things were no better; Aelius
Aristides dreamt that a governor’s clerk (grammateus tou hêgemonos) offered
to have a verdict changed in Aristides’ favour in return for a bribe of 500
drachmas (2000 HS).128 We have no reason to believe that local city officials
and provincial court clerks were less corrupt than their colleagues at higher
levels, though the sums involved were presumably smaller.
Finally, minor officials may have acted as “patrons” to semi-literate citi
zens. Even if we assume that the urban lower classes of Asia Minor were lit-
erate after a fashion, they would nonetheless find the assistance of an urban
clerk helpful when drawing up a formal letter, filing a petition or registering
a complaint.129
The gerousia
In the archaic period the gerousia, or council of elders, was an important in-
stitution in many Greek poleis – most conspicuously in Sparta. By the late
Hellenistic period, in most communities the gerousia had ceased to play any
political role, but still enjoyed a certain social status.
Though Greek writers sometimes use gerousia as a gloss for senatus, the ger-
ousia of a provincial city is in no way comparable to the senate of Rome. In fact,
when the provincial cities were reorganized on the Roman model – in Bithynia,
by the lex Pompeia – it was the boulê, not the gerousia that performed the function
as a council of ex-magistrates that in Rome was filled by the senatus.
The gerousia crops up from time to time in the epigraphic record for
Bithynia, but most often as the dedicant of an honorific inscription or the re-
cipient of a benefaction. When the achievements of a Bithynian politician are
recorded – by himself, his family (in an epitaph) or by others (in an honorific
inscription) – membership of the gerousia is never mentioned, and offices with-
in a gerousia only rarely.130 Either gerousia membership was rarely combined
with an urban politicial career or it was considered too insignificant to include
in the overview of a person’s cursus.131 Whichever way, gerousia membership
or office-holding clearly did not carry the same prestige or social status as an
urban archê or liturgy. Likewise, entry into the gerousia was not restricted to
the bouleutic class; a significant proportion of the Bithynian gerousia mem-
bers known by name do not hold the Roman franchise, and elsewhere in Asia
Minor, even ex-slaves found their way into the gerousia.132 In short, the gerousia
of a city133 was a circle of elders with no specific political functions and a less
selective composition than the boulê, yet still enjoying a certain status within
the community and with some economic assets at its disposal.134
The gymnasion
The gymnasion was originally a venue for physical exercise, but in the Hel-
lenistic cities it developed into an important node in the cultural and social
life of the city. It also functioned as a school for children and young adults.135
In the Roman period, the gymnasium may have lost its pre-eminence as a
cultural institution, but retained its role as a venue for physical exercise, now
supplemented with hot baths in the Roman tradition.136 In larger cities, the
personnel of the gymnasium might include professional educators under the
supervision of the gymnasiarch;137 in smaller communities the work of train-
ing and teaching rested on the shoulders of the gymnasiarch. Some cities had
several gymnasiarchs, one for each age-group.
The funds set aside by the city were not always sufficient to cover the op-
erating costs: teachers’ salaries, oil for the gymnasts and, in the Roman period,
fuel for the baths. The gymnasion buildings themselves also required main-
tenance and restoration to compensate for the wear and tear of daily use.138
Thus the gymnasiarchate easily developed into a mixed liturgy; in some cities,
it may have been the most costly and burdensome of all municipal liturgies.
Against this background, it is surprising how few gymnasiarchs are recorded
from our three cities, and that none of these go on to senior magistracies such
as agonothete or archon.139 Clearly the gymnasiarchate was not as prestigious,
and did not present the same opportunities for personal publicity, as the post
of agonothete or agoranomos.
The local level

It was at the lowest level of polis organization, the phylê, that the impact of the
Pompeian code was greatest. In the elective councils of the Hellenistic period,
elections had taken place by phylai, each phylê being entitled to an equal share
of the seats.140 Under this system, the leading citizen of each phylê, the phy-
larch, had presumably played a key role. Now that the council was dominated
by ex-magistrates and access controlled by the censors, the importance of the
phylai and their phylarchs was much reduced.
The local organisation of the city by phylai is best documented in the case
of Prusias ad Hypium141 and Klaudioupolis;142 a division into phylai is also
attested in the other Bithynian cities with the exception of Apameia.143 The
origins of the institution go back to the Hellenistic period and presumably
formed part of the administrative system of the Bithynian kings. Phylê names
like Germanikê, Traianê, Antoninianê and Aurelianê bear witness to the contin-
ued existence of the system during the Imperial period, and the numerous
phylarchs mentioned in dedicatory inscriptions from Prusias ad Hypium
indicate that in this city at least, there was lively activity at phylê level in the
third century.
A Christian funerary inscription found some distance west of Nikaia and
now lost144 preserved the memory of the gardener (kêpouros) Aurelius Spou-
dasis Nikeeus “living in the phylê Aurelianê” and his wife. From the expres-
sion “living in” (oikôn en), which is also found in an earlier inscription from
Nikomedia,145 it appears that a phylê was a geographical entity – like the demes
of Athens, but unlike the voting-tribes of Rome – and that this included not
only a section of the city itself but a part of its chora as well. This implies that
the number of phylai, once established, remained constant: thus “imperial”
phylê names like Faustinianê must be due to renaming of existing phylai, not
the addition of new ones.146 It is not known what occasioned renaming of a
phylê.147 In the two cases where the complete phylê list has been preserved,
their number is twelve; if this was a “canonical” number, it may also have
applied in the other Bithynian cities.
An inscription from Nikomedia148 records a grammateus tôn phylarchôn,
“secretary of the phylarchs”, an argyrotamias (treasurer) and at least three
other officers “of the phylarchs”. The use of the plural tôn phylarchôn is in-
triguing. Either the Nikomedian phylai had more than one phylarch each, or
the grammateus “of the phylarchs” was the joint secretary of all the phylarchs
of the city. The latter explanation appears more likely. It was not uncommon
for the phylai of a city to undertake projects in common, e.g. when setting up
honorific inscriptions, which would require some sort of joint organisation.
In that case, the Nikomedian inscription lists the officers in the joint bureau
of the city phylai.
If indeed the phylarchs and their deputies formed a group, this would also
go some way towards explaining the continued importance of the phylai and
their leaders. Another possibility is that the individual phylarchs functioned
as overseers of public order in their districts.149 In addition, even though votes
in the Greek assemblies were presumably cast individually (and not, as in
Rome, by tribe), it is quite possible that as a prominent citizen and elected
leader of the phylê, the phylarch could influence the voting of phyle members
in the ekklêsia.
The inclusion of a treasurer reveals that the phylai, singly or jointly, had
financial resources of their own; this is also indicated by the use of the stock
phrase ek tôn idiôn (“from its own resources”) in an inscription set up by the
phylê Antoneina of Prusa.150
While the phylarch may thus have been an important person in his own
neighbourhood and even exerted some indirect political influence in the city
assembly, a phylarchate was no urban magistracy and did not qualify its
holder for a seat in the boulê. And while agoranomes, agonothetes, archons
and censors were nearly always drawn from the body of Roman citizens,
before the Constitutio Antoniniana the phylarchs known to us are almost in-
variably peregrine.
Regional organisation: the koinon

In 29 BC, so the historian Cassius Dion tells, us, Octavian
gave permission for the dedication of sacred precincts in Ephesos

and in Nikaia to Rome and to Caesar, his father, whom he named
the hero Julius. These cities had at that time attained chief place
in Asia and in Bithynia respectively. He commanded that the
Romans resident in these cities should pay honour to these two
divinities; but he permitted the aliens, whom he styled Hellenes,
to consecrate precincts to himself, the Asians to have theirs in
Pergamon and the Bithynians theirs in Nikomedia. This practice,
beginning under him, has been continued under other emperors,
not only in the case of the Hellenic nations but also in that of all
the others, in so far as they are subject to the Romans. For in the
capital itself and in Italy generally no emperor, however worthy
of renown he has been, has dared to do this; still, even there
various divine honours are bestowed after their death upon such
emperors as have ruled uprightly, and, in fact, shrines are built
to them. All this took place in the winter; and the Pergamenians
also received authority to hold the “sacred” games, as they called
them, in honour of Caesar’s [i.e. Octavian’s] temple.151
The Annals of Tacitus also record the permission to build a temple to Oc-
tavian in Pergamon.152 Dion was writing two and a half centuries after the
event, and one cannot be certain that the contraposition of “commanded …
permitted” (prosetax … efêken) reflects the actual events of 29 BC or whether
the distinction is Dion’s, used to open the discussion of cults for living vs.
deceased emperors, an important subject for Dion and one which is elabo-
rated in the speech attributed to Maecenas in the following book.153 There are,
however, no grounds for rejecting the essential elements of Dion’s story: that
an official cult of Rome and Caesar was established in the provincial capital
Nikaia, and that – perhaps in response to the elevation of Nikaia, perhaps
with a little prompting from above – a temple to Octavian was established
in Nikomedia, though the parallel between the Nikomedian temple and that
which the Hellenes of Asia were offering to establish in Pergamon may be a
Dionian ex post rationalization.
The expression “Hellenes” could be Dion’s synonym for a regional council
or koinon. The existence of an Asian koinon is known from two earlier sources,
an edict of the 50’s BC and a rescript of Marcus Antonius from the 30’s BC,
in which the koinon is identified as to koinon tôn Ellênôn or to koinon tôn apo
tês Asias Ellênôn.154 Though we have no comparable evidence for Bithynia155
(apart from the Greek letters ascribed to Brutus, whose authenticity is highly
dubious156) it would not surprise us to find a parallel Bithynian koinon tôn
Ellênôn. Similarly, the group designation “Romans” may be a metonym for

the provincial organization. This would account for the choice of location: the
“Romans” were to have their sanctuary not in Apameia – the only Roman
colony in Bithynia – but in the Bithynian mêtropolis, Nikaia.
Although the temple of “the Romans” may have ranked higher,157 the
“temple of the Bithynians” in Nikomedia was the concern of the koinon and
as such, more often in the eye of the Bithynian elite. After c. AD 20, when
Nikomedia had become the provincial capital, its cult completely overshad-
owed that of Nikaia, which may have lapsed altogether.158
The cult of the ruler evolved into a major concern of the koina in Asia
Minor, both of the Bithynian koinon with its temple in Nikomedia and even
more so of the Asian koinon, with its multiple centres of emperor worship.
It was, however, not the only concern. The existence of a koinon in Asia and
presumably also in Bithynia before the principate is evidence that koina served
other purposes, and continued to serve them after 29 BC. Before proceeding
to a discussion of the activities of the koinon, however, an examination of its
leading officers is required.
Archiereus and Bithyniarch

As a central function of the koinon after 29 BC was the cult of the emperor, one
of its most conspicuous figures was the high priest, attested in our sources
as the archiereus. The sacerdos or archiereus is a familiar figure of the impe-
rial cult throughout the empire. In the inscriptions of Bithynia, however, we
also find another title, that of Bithyniarch – and in neighbouring regions, we
correspondingly encounter Asiarchs, Pontarchs and Lesbarchs. Within this
group, which we may conveniently call “koinarchs”, the Asiarchs are the
best known, not only because they play a supporting rôle in the Acts of the
Apostles but also because of the unusually ample documentation for individual
Asiarchs.159 That the Asiarchs, no less than the archiereis, were directly linked
with the cult of the emperor is indicated by their titulature. As mentioned,
Asia had more than one imperial cult, and the titles of archiereis are some-
times modified by naming the city to which they belong, e.g. archiereus Asias
naôn tôn en Smyrnêi, archiereus Asias naôn tôn en Sardeis etc.160 A closely similar
wording is used for the Asiarchs: Asiarchês naôn tôn en Efesôi, Asiarchês naôn
tôn en Smyrnêi.161 But if both offices are related to the same sanctuaries, what
is their relationship?
One solution, proposed in the late nineteenth century, taken up by Jürgen
Deininger in his monograph on Die Provinziallandtage der römischen Kaiserzeit
(1965), followed by Walter Ameling in his introduction to the inscriptions of
Prusias ad Hypium (1985) and most recemtly restated by Peter Weiss (2002) is
that the two terms are synonymous, i.e. that Asiarchês, Pontarchês, Bithyniarchês
etc. are alternative titles for archiereus. The crux of Deininger’s argument for
the identity of the two offices is a passage of the third-century jurist Herennius
Modestinus (fl. c. 240), preserved in the Digest162 and laying down that one who
holds “a priesthood of an ethnos, that is, the Asiarchate, Bithyniarchate …” is

exempt from the liturgy of guardianship during his term of office. Ethnos is
in this context taken to be synonymous with koinon.163
Since the text of Modestinus is not preserved in its original context, but
only as a quotation in the Digest, we cannot exclude the possibility that the
gloss (“that is, …”) has been interpolated later. In any case, Modestinus merely
informs us that the Asiarchate or the Bithyniarchate is a priesthood (as already
implied by the inscriptions linking the Asiarchês with a specific temple); for
all his legal precision, he does not specifically identify the office as that of an
archiereus.
There are, on the other hand, several arguments against the identity of the
two offices, most recently summarized by Stephen J. Friesen (1999a, 1999b). It
is striking that while the archiereus appears in the singular, we also encounter
Asiarchs in the plural, for instance in Strabon and in the Acts of the Apostles
where Paul is advised by “his friends the Asiarchs” not to enter the theatre at
Ephesos.164 The explanation offered by Deininger is that Asiarchês was a title
that the holder could continue to use after his term of office had ended: once
an Asiarch, always an Asiarch.165 Thus some of Paul’s friends will have been
former archiereis. There are few parallels for titles being retained by emeriti,
and the iteration of koinarchates also speaks against this hypothesis. For in-
stance, in the late second century M. Aurelius Mindius Mattidianus Pollio of
Ephesos (see also below, p. 109) was Bithyniarch “three times” according to
the inscription recording his achievements.166
Even more difficult to explain is the occurrence of two supposedly syn-
onymous words in the same cursus. Around AD 215, M. Aurelius Alexan-
der from Amastris details his impressive list of offices and liturgies, stating
unequivocally that he has served as “archiereus tou Pontou … Beithyniarchês
kai Pontarchês”;167 in another, unfinished inscription from Prusa (fig. 20), the
unnamed dedicand has served as [Bithyni?]arch, as Pontarch and twice as
hiereus tou sebastou.168 Clearly the archiereus tou Pontou and the Pontarchês are
two distinct titles and offices. Similarly, an earlier inscription records a T.
Flavius of Nikaia as both archiereus and Asiarch169 (though in his case, one
cannot exclude the possibility that he he was archiereus of Bithynia, not Asia,
just as the Bithyniarch M. Aurelius Mindius Matidianus Pollio served as ar-
chiereus of Asia).
The above should be sufficient evidence that archiereus and B(e)ithyniarchês
cannot be synonymous. As far as Bithynia is concerned, the interpretation of
Friesen appears more convincing and is followed by Fernoux (2004) who sees
the Bithyniarch as the supreme officer of the koinon, to whom the archiereus
is subordinate: “Le koinon Bithynien avait à sa tête un seul et même person-
age, le bithyniarque. Ce dernier était assisté, pour les questions religeuses, de
plusieurs personnages (…) et, surtout, l’archiereus, avec lequel le bithyniarque
ne se confondait pas”.170
But did the Bithyniarch officiate “seul et même”? We have seen that his col-
leagues, the Asiarchs, are mentioned in the plural by Strabon and in the Acts.
Also, as both Deininger and Friesen have noted, the number of Asiarchs known
by name is surprisingly high.171 It is perhaps significant that for Bithynia, too,
we have far more names of Bithyniarchs than names of archiereis.172
From the evidence of Strabon and Acts, it is clear that at a given time,
there was more than one Asiarch; thus there may also have been several
Bithyniarchs, Pontarchs etc. Deininger hypothesized that an Asiarch retained
his title after leaving office; while this would explain the co-existence of sev-
eral Asiarchs at one point in time, it does not increase the total number of
Asiarchs. A more likely explanation is that in a given year, there was more
than one Asiarch, and likewise more than one Bithyniarch.173
This will explain several other problems not addressed by Fernoux.
Many notables held a koinarchate outside their home koinon. At least four
Bithyniarchs also held the Pontarchate;174 one Pontarch also served as Les-
barch;175 a citizen of Nikaia served as Asiarch and a citizen of Pergamon as
Bithyniarch.176 The combination in one career of several koinarchates, even
of regions as far distant as Pontos and Lesbos, is easier to understand if the
koinarchate was shared with one or more colleagues, thus requiring less at-
tention.
A further problem is that besides the familiar titles of Bithyniarchês and
archiereus, we also find [arxanta] tên megistên archên tou koinobouliou,177 arxanta
tou koinou tôn en Beithynia hellênôn,178 archôn … tês eparchei[as]179 and ethnei
Beithynidos archês protôn en’Ellêsin.180 Fernoux interprets these titles as syn-
onyms for Bithyniarch. However, in the cursus of Ti. Claudius Piso of Pru-
sias ad Hypium, the formula archôn tês eparcheias is later followed by the title
Bithyniarchês.181 They must be two different functions, as proposed by M.D.
Campanile,182 or different ranks: if there was more than one Bithyniarch in a
given year, the expression arxas tou koinou and its variants could be intended
to distinguish a senior Bithyniarch from his junior or titulary colleagues.183
On this interpretation, Ti. Claudius Piso held the office twice, the second time
as senior Bithyniarch.
In the passage cited earlier, Strabon describes the city of Tralleis in Asia
and notes that some of its citizens are among the “leading persons of the
province, who are called Asiarchs”.184 That the Bithyniarchs, too, were “lead-
ing persons” of their province is confirmed by their names and careers (see
below, p. 105-106). A significant part of the native Bithyniarchs and arxantes
tou koinou known to us belong to the equestrian order, while the archiereis
are not always Roman citizens.185 In other words, the distinction between
Bithyniarch and archiereus is social as well as functional.
Parallels to the Bithyniarchs and the other koinarchs are found in the early
Ptolemaic empire. When the Nesiotic league of Aegean islands came under
Ptolemaic control c. 286 BC, the office of Nesiarch was created.186 A decree of
278 BC mentions a Pamphyli[archês].187 These officials were royal appointees
and thus of high social status; they were not elected by the koinon. Otherwise,
the functions of the Nesiotic koinon resemble those of later koina in the Roman
provinces: it issues honorific decrees, sends theoroi to important festivals and
gifts as well as congratulatory delegations to the monarchs. It may also have
taken a hand in settling inter-island disputes and dispensing justice.188
Some koina had their own mints. Coins were struck in the name of the
koinon Beithynias from the early first to the mid-second century (fig. 7a). The
actual work was done by the mint of Nikomedia. Since some Bithynian is-
sues are virtually indistinguishable from the city’s own coins, and the same
reverse images are found on both, estimating the extent of regional coin pro-
duction is difficult.
Koinon and governor

Deininger (1965) assumed a priori that in the Roman period, provincial coun-
cils played a leading role in pressing charges of maladministration (de repe-
tundis) against former provincial governors, though this is not borne out by
the sources quoted.189 Ameling (1985) follows Deininger but goes one step
further to claim that next to the cult of the emperor, repetundae suits were the
most important function of the koinon.190 If that were the case, most provincial
koina had a very light workload. In the century from AD 10 to 110, Bithynia
et Pontus is the province for which the highest number of cases de repetundis
is known – seven191 – but even so, forty years elapsed between the conviction
of Tarquitius Priscus in AD 61 and the next trial known to us, that of Julius
Bassus in AD 102. Furthermore, it is not at all clear that the Bithynian koinon
was involved in every one of these cases. In fact, our sources mention the
concilium only once, in connection with the trial of Varenus, where the council
sent a delegate to Rome with instructions to stop the prosecution.192
In the earliest known case, the prosecution of the governor was instigated
by his own quaestor;193 in the other cases, several of which are described in some
detail by the younger Pliny or by Tacitus, the plaintiffs are simply referred to
as “the Bithynians”.194 While this phraseology does not exclude an active role
for the koinon, perhaps even as instigator, such a role is nowhere attested in
our sources; nor was it a prerequisite for a charge of repetundae. As Augustus
reminded the Cyreneans in an edict,195 anyone was entitled to file a charge de
repetundis (and we note that within the century from 10 to 110, the province
of Crete and Cyrenaica, though possessing no koinon, prosecuted at least five
governors on repetundae charges and obtained convictions in three cases196).
A city or a group of cities, for example, could undertake a repetundae suit.
In his speech of advice to the Nikaians “On concord”, Dion says that disunity
between Nikomedia and Nikaia plays into the hands of unscrupulous gover-
nors;197 this remark is more easily understood if repetundae proceedings were
normally undertaken by the leading cities of Bithynia. On the other hand, if
the decision to prosecute were normally taken in the koinon, the abstention
of either Nikomedia or Nikaia out of the twelve Bithynian cities would not
prevent the motion being passed.198
Notes
1 Meyer 2004, 3.
2 CTh. 1.4.3.
3 Bagnall 1976, 244‑245.
4 Pliny, Ep. 10.79: Cautum est …Pompeia lege quae Bithynis data est, “it is laid down
in the Pompeian code for the Bithynians”; Ep. 114, Lege … Pompeia permissum[est],
“It is allowed by the Pompeian code”.
5 FIRA 1, 170‑175.
6 For a discussion of the content and structure of the lex Pompeia, see Fernoux 2004,
130‑131; Ameling 1984.
7 Pliny, Ep. 109: Quo iure uti debeant Bithynae vel Ponticae civitates in iis pecuniis,
quae … debebuntur, ex lege cuiusque animadvertendum est.
8 Inst. 1.193. With good reason, Marshall (1968, 105) rejects Sherwin-White’s (1966,
670) identification of the Lex Bithynorum quoted by Gaius with the Pompeian code.
Gaius specifically gives this as an example of legal practice apud peregrinos that is
parallel, but not identical, to Roman practice. If Pompey had modified the rules
governing the guardianship of women, it is difficult to see why he should have
made them similar to, but not congruent with, Roman practice. Furthermore, one
might expect a legal commentator to refer to the Pompeian code by its official
title. For a more general discussion of surviving indigenous law under the early
empire, see Lintott 1993, 156‑159.
9 Robinson 1997, 40‑41.
10 Letters to Atticus, 6.1.15; Badian 1972, 89.
11 Letters to Atticus, 5.21.11‑13; 6.1.6‑7.
12 Ep. 10.54.
13 Dion, Or. 46.14.
14 Dion, Or. 34.9; 38.38; 39.4;
15 Ep. 10.27‑28.
16 Cf. Basil’s attempt to enlist his friend Martinianus, an intimate of the emperor,
in his struggle against the demotion of Kaisareia, p. 46.
17 Dion, Or. 45.3.
18 Dion, Or. 45.8.
19 Talbert 1984, 393‑398.
20 In practice, imperial legates had one advantage over their senatorial colleagues.
A governor could not be prosecuted while he was still in office and only within
a year after leaving it. It was difficult to plan the prosecution of an imperial leg-
ate, since the provincials could not predict when his term would end. The longer
term of office also left a legate more time to establish counter-alliances against
his local critics.
21 Talbert 1984, 396‑397.
22 Talbert 1984, 395 (with further examples).
23 Annales 2.54. Tacitus, who was very sensitive of the senate’s prerogatives, but also
an uncritical admirer of Germanicus, has clearly chosen his words with care. As
imperial deputy, Germanicus clearly had the authority to overrule the senatorial
governor and his subordinates. It may even have been Germanicus who took the
decision to relocate the provincial capital from Nikaia to Nikomedia, see Bosch
1935, 224.
24 Rémy 1988, 24‑25; 82‑83.
25 Talbert 1984, 400.
26 Pace the evaluation of Helmut Krasser (DnP 9.1141) who finds Pliny’s political
career “brilliant”, Pliny’s attainments were noteworthy but hardly exceptional
for a young man of ability and good family. He served the mandatory stint as
tribunus militum required of all upper-class aspirants to political careers, but saw
no further active service. He attained a suffect consulate suo anno but neither
praetorship nor consulate was followed by appointment to a province. Under
Trajan he obtained an augurate (for his request for this office, see Ep. 10.13) and
served as one of the curatores alvei Tiberis.
27 Compare, e.g., the careers of P. Paquius Scaeva, sent to Cyprus ad componendum
statum in reliquum provinciae (ILS 915) and of Galba, appointed governor of Africa
extra sortem … ad ordinandam provinciam et intestina dissensione et barbarorum
tumultu inquietam (Suetonius, Galba 7). Unlike Pliny, Paquius had already served
as governor once before, and in the same province. Galba had proved himself
as governor in the senatorial province of Aquitania and as legate in the frontier
province of Upper Germany.
28 Note also the implication of Trajan’s reply to Pliny concerning the accounts of
Apameia (Ep. 10.48) that “in this case” (hoc) Pliny should make a special inspec-
tion “at my desire” (ex mea voluntate).
29 Although a number of irregularities are discovered by Pliny, there is no direct
mention of Bithynian grandees being charged with maladministration or appro-
priation of public funds. Only one serious case is mentioned in the correspondence
(Ep. 10.110), and that is from Pontus: an illegal grant of 160,000 HS made many
years previously by the city of Amisos to one Julius Piso. Trajan advised Pliny
to drop the charges (Ep. 10.111).
30 Though Pliny’s adulation of Trajan in the Panegyric contains much implied criti-
cism of Domitian, there is nothing in his earlier career to indicate that Pliny had
taken a markedly anti-Domitianic stance; in his province, he was apparently on
good terms with the remnants of the pro-Flavian faction including the philosopher
and Domitianic protegé Flavius Hipparchos, who hoped to enlist Pliny’s support
in his conflict with Dion (Ep. 10.81). Cf. the case of Pliny’s friend Tacitus, who
enjoyed a successful career under the Flavians, emerging as a sharp critic of
Domitian only after the latter’s death.
31 Talbert 1984, 395‑399.
32 Pausanias, 7.17.3. Although Pausanias – who had probably never been there –
calls Sardinia a “very prosperous” (eudaimôn) island, it can hardly have been
more than a symbolic compensation.
33 Pliny, Ep. 10.79.
34 Mommsen 1887, 1.570‑572
36 Ep. 1.19.
37 Ep. 10.112.
38 Dion, Or. 50.1
39 Pliny, Ep. 10.79, sit aliquanto melius honestorum hominum liberos quam e plebe in
curiam admitti.
40 Dion, Or. 49.
41 Salmeri (2000, 73‑74) who views boulê and ekklêsia as representative of popular
and elitist interests, respectively, “two political bodies” locked in a “class con-
flict” which from time to time erupted into large-scale civil strife. Salmeri cites
Dion’s Or. 39 (the “Nikaian”) and homonoia coins of Nikaia and Nikomedia, but
neither Dion’s thirty-ninth oration nor the coins specify the parties in the conflict:
they could equally well be two different factions within the boulê or within the
ekklêsia.
42 Cf., for instance, the city charter of Parthicopolis in modern Bulgaria, dated to
AD 158, where the council was limited to 80 members (Oliver 1958, 52‑53)..
43 Liebenam 1900, 229‑230 (with references). Libanios, Or. 2.33 implies that “in the
good old days” 600 members was the normal size of a city council.
44 As Ameling (IK 27 p. 20) points out in his discussion of Prusias ad Hypium,
there is a proportional relationship, probably around 1:30, between the number
of junior magistracies and the total number of ex-magistrates on the council – but
since we do not know the annual number of junior magistrates either, this is not
very helpful. Cf. also Guinea Diaz 1997, 214‑215.
45 Dion, Or. 45.7. C.P. Jones (1978, 96) estimates the council of Prusa at “several
hundred” before the addition of the extra hundred.
46 Ameling, IK 27 p. 20. Ulpian’s assumption (Digest 50.3.1, cf. note 48 below) that
the rank of the councillors is laid down by the city’s laws (ut lege municipali prae-
cipitur) is significant: such matters apparently did not normally come within the
scope of a provincial code. Cf. also Trajan’s refusal to establish a provincial rule
about summa honoraria.
47 Digest, 50.2.1; 50.2.2.pr.
48 Digest, 50.3.1.pr.: Decuriones in albo ita scriptos esse oportet, ut lege municipali prae-
cipitur: sed si lex cessat, tunc dignitates erunt spectandae, ut scribantur eo ordine, quo
quisque eorum maximo honore in municipio functus est: puta qui duumviratum gesse-
runt, si hic honor praecellat, et inter duumvirales antiquissimus quisque prior: deinde
hi, qui secundo post duumviratum honore in re publica functi sunt: post eos qui tertio et
deinceps: mox hi qui nullo honore functi sunt, prout quisque eorum in ordinem venit.
49 Digest 50.3.1: In sententiis quoque dicendis idem ordo spectandus est, quem in albo
scribendo diximus.
50 Ep. 10.113.
51 E.g., by Paul Veyne (1976, 277).
52 Fernoux 2004, 321.
53 See Quass 1993, 388‑390 for a discussion (with references).
54 Veyne 1976, 251‑253.
55 Cf., for third-century Athens, Gauthier 1985, 118‑119.
56 Quass 1993, 297.
57 Quass 1993, 277‑278.
58 Cf also Magie 1950, 61; 651‑652.
59 Quass 1993, 321‑322; for a Bithynian example, IK 27.4.
60 From the epigraphic evidence, which only records those who performed their
liturgies and were subsequently honoured, it is not clear how frequently the
urban rich tried to evade their obligations. In his twentieth oration, Dion briefly
refers to situations where “someone who has amassed great wealth leaves the
city in order to avoid the liturgies” (Or. 20.1).
61 In addition to taxes in cash, the imperial authorities might also impose other
duties on the provincials, e.g., corvées, requisitions in kind or the obligation to
maintain a road-station for the cursus publicus. Since these do not relate directly
to the finances of the cities, they will not be discussed here.
62 Cf. Tacitus, Agricola, 19.
63 Lintott 1993, 78‑79,
64 Matthew 11.19; Mark 2.16; Luke 5.30; 15.1.

65 Lintott 1993, 96‑97.
66 According to Suetonius (Vespasian, 1) several Asian cities set up statues in honour
of T. Flavius Sabinus, collector of customs duties and father of the later emperor
Vespasian. It should also be remembered that the alternative to tax-farming was
to leave the task in the hands of the city councils, i.e. the local landowners.
67 Lintott 1993, 78.
68 Cf. Pliny, Letters 7.18. The standard work on ancient trust funds remains Laum
(1914) which, however, lists only one example from Bithynia. Gabriele Weiler,
DnP s.v. Stiftungen (11.994) discusses various possible motives for establishing
a fund, though not the practical consideration that, under the law of the early
Empire, a city or other corporation could not inherit. One way to circumvent this
prohibition was for the testator to stipulate in his will that the heir(s) should create
an endowment, of which the city would act as trustee. For examples, see Pliny Ep.
5.7; 10.75. (endowment for the benefit of two Pontic cities). For a (fragmentary)
list of Pliny’s own endowments in favour of his home cities, CIL 5.5262 = ILS
2927. Cf. also Digest, 50.8.6 on cases where a bequest is insufficient to cover the
cost of the project(s) envisaged by the testator.
69 Contra the assumption of DeLaet (1949, 356), based on Dion, Or. 38.32, that
Nikomedia levied local harbour dues on goods passing through the port, see
France 1999, 101 n. 27. For a possible alternative interpretation of the passage in
question, Jones 1978, 87.
70 Pliny, Ep. 10.23.
71 For the widespread use of municipal slaves in the early Imperial period, see,
most recently, Weiss 2004; in Bithynia, Pliny, Ep. 10.19‑20; 31‑32. The use of public
slaves later declined: Lenski 2006, 347‑348.
72 E.g., the aqueduct of Nikomedia, Pliny, Ep. 10.37.
73 E.g., the theatre at Nikaia, Pliny, Ep. 10.38.
74 E.g., the colonnade at Prusa, Dion, Or. 48.11.
75 Digest, 50.12.
76 Digest, 50.12.1; 12.3; 12.6; 12.9; 12.14; see also Quass 1993, 211‑212.
77 Digest, 50.12.4 (Marcianus); 50.12.7 (Paulus).
78 Dion, Or. 48.11. In Or. 47.19, Dion moots the possibility of “asking the proconsul to
collect”, presumably a euphemism for taking legal action against the recalcitrant
donors.
79 Pliny, Ep. 10.39.
80 Pliny states emphatically that the building shows “enormous cracks” (rimae
ingentes); he visited Nikaia on several occasions, and his description gives an
impression of autopsy. A visual inspection of the theatre as it stands today,
however, reveals no traces of cracks or large-scale subsidence.
81 Pliny, Ep. 10.37.
82 Pliny, Ep. 10.17b.
83 For instance, according to Philostratos (VS 548), an aqueduct project at Alexandria
Troas overran its budget by more than 130 %.
84 Vitruvius, 10.1‑2.
85 IK 39. 1a.
86 Dion, Or. 45.6. Since Dion explicitly says that he “has heard many tell of this”,
the event must have taken place before his return to Prusa.
87 Pliny, Ep. 17a.
88 IK 13.627.
89 Officers of the gerousia: IK 39.5; 19 (Prusa); the phylai, TAM 4.1.42 (Nikomedia);
the gymnasium, IK 10.1209 (Nikaia).
90 IK 25.6; Robert 1950, 80‑93.
91 Compare IK 9.57 and 9.61 (Nikaia), IK 27.38 (Prusias ad Hypium).
92 IK 27, p. 24‑25.
93 Fernoux 2004, 323.
94 IK 9.61. This is not an official inscription of the city, but was set up by a gerou-
sia.
95 In Prusias ad Hypium, a candidate was apparently only elected to the first
archontate after serving as ordinary archon; see IK 27, p. 22.
96 For examples, see Quass 1993, 324‑326.
97 Cf. Pliny, Ep. 10.118‑119. In AD 66, Nero, returning from his tour of Greece,
invoked the same tradition by entering Rome through a breach in the walls,
Suetonius, Nero 25; cf. Plutarch Mor. 639E.
98 Pliny, Ep. 10.75. For the tasks of the agonothete, see also Quass 1993, 303‑317.
99 For the numerous agônes of Nikaia, see Şahin, IK 10.3, pp. 66‑78.
100 Cf. the career of an anonymous Prusan (the subject of IK 39.13) who was logistês,
pontarchês and agonothete.
101 E.g., IK 29.16 (Prusias ad Mare).
102 Cf., e.g., Aristophanes, Acharnians 723, 824, 968; Wasps 1407.
103 Ath.Pol. 51.1‑4.
104 TAM 4.1.262 = Şahin 1974, 34.
105 IK 9.60. For further examples, see Quass 1993, 267‑269.
106 Dion’s Or. 46 was given in Prusa during a period of grain shortage; no mention is
made of a public fund for purchasing grain, and in fact it is implied (46.8) that if
money is to be applied towards that purpose, it will have to be borrowed. It has
been argued that Pliny, Ep. 10.24‑25 refers to an “oil fund” in Prusa; see Sherwin-
White 1966, 594 (with references). In the context, however, it seems unlikely that
either Pliny or Trajan would consider transferring money to a building project
from a fund intended to safeguard the provision of basic foodstuffs for the popu-
lation. In the smaller city of Prusias ad Hypium a grain fund (IK 27.8; 11) as well
as an oil fund (IK 27.9) are attested in the third century AD.
107 Quass 1993, 260‑263.
108 Cf. Dion’s proposal, Or. 46.14, to elect “men who are financially able and have
not previously performed liturgies” (tous dynamenous cheirotonein kai mê lelei
tourgêkontas) as overseers of the Prusan market.
109 Laum 1914, no. 70 (Tralleis).
110 De Ruyt 1983, 193 (restoration of a porticus in the market of Tegea).
111 IK 36.146 (Tralleis), see also Bekker-Nielsen 2007.
112 Metamorphoses 1.25‑26, translation adapted from Hanson 1989.
113 Pliny, Ep. 10.43‑44.
114 When Pliny (Ep. 10.79) writes of councillors “admitted by the censors” he is
presumably referring to candidates elected by the ekklêsia (no doubt endorsed by
the boulê), who required the censors’ approval before being officially admitted
to the council.
115 This is clear from Ep. 10.79 where it is the censors-designate who wish to consult
Pliny.
116 For an example from Bithynia, see IK 27.9 (Prusias ad Hypium), recording how
M. Aurelius Philippianus Iason financed the construction of a colonnaded street
(plateia) during his term as censor. Quass (1993, 214 n. 786) and Ameling (IK 27,
p. 61) take the inscription to indicate that Aurelius made the donation as censor
(“in dieser Eigenschaft”) but en tôi kairôi tês timêteias, “at the time of his censorate”
implies no such connection. On the meaning of plateia, see Robert 1937, 532.
117 IK 27.3; 4; 10; 17; 47.
118 OGIS 549. For a discussion, see Fernoux 2004, 336.
119 IK 29.7 = IK 10.726.
120 IK 27.10; 17.
121 Cf. IK 39.3: grammateus boulês kai dêmou; dêmos presumably as a metonym for
ekklêsia.
122 Quass 1993, 297‑298.
123 For a detailed discussion of the role of slaves in Greek city archives of the early
Roman period, see Weiss 2004, 78‑84.
124 There was no fixed cursus honorum in the Asian cities (Fernoux 2004, 140 contra
Sherwin-White 1966, 671) but the office of grammateus usually comes at the
beginning of a man’s career, shortly after or (more often) before the post of ago-
ranomos.
125 Acts 19; for a discussion, Bekker-Nielsen 2006, 113-114.
126 See Weiss 2004, 53 for the career of Gaius, a former city slave who after emanci-
pation attained the position of oikonomos (= vilicus); as Weiss notes, this suggests
that Gaius had held “eine gehobenere Verwaltungsposition” in the city admin-
istration.
127 Suetonius, Vespasian, 23.
128 Aristides, Sacred tales, 4.81; for the informal power wielded by the governors’
entourage and the corruption to which it exposed them, see Braund 1998.
129 In the late 370’s, Gregory of Nyssa complains that his province, Cappadocia, suf-
fers from “a dearth of persons who are able to write” (Ep. 15). Bithynia was more
urbanised than Cappadocia, but even if its population were able to compose short
texts, many would no doubt need assistance when addressing the authorities.
130 A third-century inscription set up by the phylarchs of Prusias ad Hypium (IK
27.10) records the achievements of the dedicand in great detail, including his
service as “logistês of the sacred gerousia”.
131 Of course, some inscriptions may have been set up before the person reached the
minimum age for entry into the gerousia.
132 Quass 1993, 390; Fernoux 2004, 302‑303.
133 Since the gerousia invariably appears in the singular and, unlike phylai, without
an identifying epithet, we may assume that as a rule, there was only one gerousia
in each city.
134 Cf. IK 39.5 and 39.19, where the treasurer of the Prusan gerousia is mentioned
along with the archon.
135 Quass 1993, 286‑287.
136 Quass 1993, 317‑319.
137 Quass 1993, 287.
138 For examples, see Quass 1993, 206‑207.
139 Nikaia: IK 9.61; 9.65; 10.1209. Nikomedia: none. Prusa: IK 39.24; 40.1042.
140 In some cities outside Pontus-Bithynia – not affected by the timocratic provisions
of the Pompeian code – the practice of election by phylai persisted well into the
Roman period, e.g. in Athens and Kyzikos (Quass 1993, 385).
141 IK 27.1‑16.
142 Marek 2002.
143 Ameling, IK 27, p. 26‑27; Fernoux 2004, 65‑55. Given the paucity of Apameian
inscriptions, the absence of evidence for phylai may be coincidental.
144 IK 9.554.
145 TAM 4.1.60 (AD 98/99).
146 For a detailed discussion of phylê naming practice in Bithynia, see Marek 2002,
43‑46, contra Ameling IK 27, p. 25‑26.
147 One might imagine that imperial visits provided the occasion for renaming phylai
in honour of members of the imperial house – but although Prusias ad Hypium
and Klaudioupolis are located on the same land route across northern Anatolia,
their phylai are named after different emperors; see Marek 2002, 43.
148 TAM 4.1.42
149 In fourth-century Antioch, the epimelêtai tôn phylôn were charged with maintaining
public order and holding inquests and on occasion functioned as public prosecu-
tors; Liebeschuetz 1972, 122‑123.
150 IK 39.21.
151 Cassius Dion 51.20.5‑9, trans. Earnest Cary (Loeb).
152 Tacitus, Annals 4.37.
153 Cassius Dion 52.35.
154 IPriene 106; Ehrenberg & Jones 1976, 300.
155 For a detailed but highly hypothetical reconstruction of the origin and stages of
development of the Bithynian koinon, see Marek 1993, 77‑79.
156 Cf. the edition of Torraca 1959, no. 59; on the question of authenticity, see most
recently Moles 1997.
157 One notes that Dion Cassius mentions the “temples of the Romans” first, with
the “temples of the Hellenes” in the nature of an afterthought.
158 The imperial cult in Nikaia is not mentioned by later sources, nor have any
remains of the temple itself been located.
159 Friesen 1999a, 304‑305.
160 Deininger 1965, 39.
161 Deininger 1965, 42.
162 Dig. 27.1.6.14. In Scott’s translation, the opening words are rendered “The gover-
norship of a province…”. There are no parallels, however, to support the equation
of hierarchia with a governorship; on the contrary, if a provincial governor were
meant, we would expect eparcheia in the place of ethnos.
163 Deininger 1964, 44‑45.
164 Strabon, 14.1.42; Acts 19.31.
165 Deininger 1965, 46.
166 IK 13.627.
167 OGIS 531 = Marek 1993, 95. Deininger mentions this inscription in passing (1965,
64 nn. 9‑10) but makes no attempt to explain the co-occurrence of two synony-
mous words.
168 IK 39.13.
169 IK 10.73; this inscription was not known to Deininger in 1965.
170 Fernoux 2004, 353.
1 71 Deininger 1965, 42; Friesen 1999b, 283‑284.

172 Fernoux 2004, 350‑352, table 18. Of course, if a person had attained the
Bithyniarchate, the less prestigious post of archiereus may sometimes have been
omitted from the list of his offices.
173 That Asiarchs were eponymous is no objection. In the late Hellenistic period,
the Ainian league had five Ainiarchs, one of whom was eponymous; see Martin
1975, 361; 545.
174 OGIS 531 = Marek 1993, no. 95, IK 27.17; 29; 53.
175 Marek 1993, no. 19.
176 Inschr.Askl. 151.
177 TAM 4.1.33
178 IK 27.3; 9; 10; 51.
179 IK 27.9.
180 IK 31.16.
181 IK 27.9; for a parallel case from Pontos, see Marek 1993, no. 19: pontarchên kai
lesbarchên … prôteuonta tôn eparcheiôn: “Pontarch and Lesbarch … the leading man
of the provinces” (i.e. Pontos and Lesbos).
182 Campanile 1993, 348.
183 Apart from one inscription in Nikomedia (TAM 4.1.33) the use of these phrases
is localized to Prusias ad Hypium and the neigbouring city of Klaudioupolis.
The titulature used in Prusias ad Hypium has other peculiarities, such as the
title hellenarchês (IK 27.5; 46) in place of the more usual helladarchês.
184 Strabon, 14.1.42, hoi prôteuontes kata tên eparchian, hous Asiarchas kalousin. This
definition is dismissed by Deininger (1965, 43) as “freilich ungenau genug” but
invoked by Ameling (IK 27, p. 31) in support of the theory that archiereus and
Asiarchês are synonymous.
185 On the other hand, Friesen (1999a, 305) found that in Asia, the proportion of
Roman citizens among the archiereis was slightly higher than among the Asiarchs
(92.6 % and 88.9 % respectively). This difference is unlikely to be statistically
significant. The earlier assumption of Ramsay (1941, 6‑7) that imperial priests
must be citizens and if they were not, then received the franchise when they
were appointed, is clearly untenable.
186 Bagnall 1976, 137; 156‑157.
187 Bagnall 1976, 111, with references. In 204 BC the murderer of Arsinoë III,
Philammon, was appointed “Libyarchês of the region of Kyrene” to get him
away from Alexandria; it is not clear, however, whether this is a technical term
or used in a more general sense by our source, Polybios (15.25.12).
188 Bagnall 1976, 139‑141.
189 For instance, Deininger (1965, 166‑167) analyses the speech of Paetus Thrasea,
as paraphrased by Tacitus (Annals 15.21‑22) in great detail as evidence for the
actions and scope of authority of “Landtage” (provincial councils), but the word
concilium or its equivalents occur nowhere in the text. In fact, Thrasea says that
governors were praised or prosecuted ad nutum alicuius, “at anyone’s prompting”
(15.22).
191 Brunt 1961, 227, table III.
192 Pliny, Ep. 7.6.
193 Tacitus, Ann. 1.74.
194 Tacitus, Ann. 12.22 (Cadius Rufus); Cassius Dion, 60.33 (Junius Cilo); Tacitus,
Ann. 14.46 (Tarquitius Priscus); Pliny, Ep. 4.9; 6.29 (Julius Bassus); Ep. 5.20; 6.5;
6.13; 7.10 (Varenus Rufus).
195 FIRA 1, 409‑414.
196 Brunt 1961, 224‑226, table I.
197 Dion, Or. 38.36.
198 For a parallel example from Cilicia, see Dion, Or. 34.9, referring to the successful
prosecution of several “rulers” (hêgemones) by the city of Tarsos and the reactions
this provoked in the province and at Rome; cf. also Or. 34.42. C.P. Jones (1978,
76‑77), basing himself on Deininger (1965, 167‑168), assumes that the hêgemones
are provincial governors and that Tarsos acted on behalf of the koinon, “since
only this could prosecute a governor”. As, however, this section of the second
Tarsian oration is concerned precisely with the city’s claim to be the leading city
of the province, one would expect Dion to emphasize how the city had acted on
behalf of the koinon – if that were actually the case. For other examples of Dion’s
use of hêgemôn as a synonym for governor, see Or. 38.33; 38.36; 39.4; for his use
of hêgemôn and stratêgos, Bost-Pouderon comm. ad Or. 34, vol. 2, p. 88‑89.
6. The Political Class
Ethnic composition
It is sometimes claimed that in the last century BC, the ruling class of Bithynian
landowners – most of them of Thracian descent – were displaced by immigrés
of Roman or Italian background; a view that has been restated recently, with
variations, by Fernoux (2004: Italians) and Corsten (2006: Romans).1
There is no doubt that during the last century of the Republic, an increas-
ing number of Italians were active in Asia Minor as negotiatores or publicani;
it was later claimed that during the “Ephesian Vesper” (88 BC), no less than
80,000 Italians were killed. While the actual figure is open to question – the
history of the Mithradatic wars has been written by the victors, and the en-
emies of Mithradates had every reason to exaggerate the number of his vic-
tims – there was a substantial Italian presence in Asia, and presumably also
in neighbouring Bithynia. But did the immigrants remain in the region, or
did they return to Italy with their profits? Fernoux notes that while Cicero’s
correspondence names no less than eight Italians with direct financial in-
terests in Bithynia, only one is known to have settled there.2 That is hardly
surprising, since contracting as a publicanus and farming an estate represent
very different economic strategies, one oriented towards short-term, the other
towards long-term goals.
As a way to identify Republican immigrants to Bithynia and their descen-
dants, Fernoux has made a survey of the epigraphic material, focusing on
gentilicia that can be assumed to indicate an Italian origin.3 However, of the
fourteen gentilicia cited, eight – Caesonii, Granii, Hostilii, Pactumeii, Postumii,
Veturii, Vedii, Herennii – also occur in the Aegean islands or Asia Minor,
some as early as the second century BC. Most of the inscriptions cited date
from the second or third century AD, and most were found in urban contexts.
Thus, many of these “Italians” may be descended from families that had been
settled in the Levant for several centuries (or from their freedmen) and not
all belonged to the landowning class.4
A recent study by Thomas Corsten (2006) focuses on the Bithynian inscrip-
tions where it is clear from the context that the person named is a landowner:
sixteen inscriptions in all (of which one5 recurs in the list of Fernoux). He
concludes that “the epigraphic record no longer attests people with Thracian
personal names, i.e. Bithynians, as owners of large estates, but we find Ro-
mans in their place”.6 Of these “Romans”, however, only one bears a nomen
gentile – Vedius – that is distinctively “Italian” according to the criteria of

Fernoux,7 while several have purely Greek names (Euangelos, Antipatris) or
Roman tria nomina with Greek cognomina (Thraso, Phaedrus). Even among
the Roman names, Claudius or Claudia may imply a family whose ancestors
received the Roman franchise in the imperial period, rather than Republican
immigrants.
Another problem with any onomastic analysis is the assumption that
names are reliable clues to the ethnic origin or cultural identity of their owner.
Onomastics reflect social as well as ethnic identity: as emphasized by Madsen
(2006), “the elite were … eager to present themselves as Roman in public by
appearing with Latin-sounding names”.8 Composite Graeco-Roman names
could belong to “Hellenized” Italians, but equally well to “Romanized” Greeks
or Bithynians who had been manumitted or won the Roman franchise for
themselves. The disappearance of Thracian names, central to Corsten’s argu-
ment, could be a sign of onomastic Hellenisation rather than Italian immigra-
tion.9 The limited epigraphical evidence for the ethnic origin of the Bithynian
landowning class will hardly support the contention that “most, if not all of
the Bithynian land that had been in the hands of indigenous noblemen, had
fallen into the possession of Romans”10 by the time of Actium.
There is a further argument against the presence of a large group of immi-
gré kulaks of Italian extraction in late Republican and early Imperial Bithynia.
It was precisely from such a class of well-to-do landowners that the Roman
Empire was accustomed to draw its soldiers, officers, administrators and
political leaders. One would therefore expect to find Bithynians well repre-
sented in the army, the equestrian order and the Senate – but they are not.
From the Julio-Claudian period, not a single Bithynian senator is known and
only one Bithynian equestrian11 – significantly, he does not hail from any of
the indigenous cities, but from the Roman colony Apameia. Yet in the same
period soldiers and senators from the western provinces, notably Gaul, are
familiar sights to Roman eyes. By contrast, Bithynians were not integrated
into the higher orders or the imperial service on a larger scale until the sec-
ond century AD.12
Based on the available evidence, a more plausible hypothesis seems to be
that large parts of the Bithynian landowning elite – of whatever ethnic origin –
survived the Roman conquest and the depredations of the publicani, but that
their parochial outlook and insufficient knowledge of Latin (the language of
administration and command) kept them out of imperial careers until gradu-
ally, through imitation of and intermarriage with families of Italian origin,
their descendents came to appreciate the opportunities for social advancement
offered by Roman domination.
The Political Class 99
Roman citizenship
As in every Roman province, an important distinction separated the minor-
ity who possessed Roman citizenship from the majority of free non-citizens
(peregrines). Citizenship was acquired by descent (from a citizen father), by
manumission (by a citizen owner) or by imperial grant.
One route to citizen status passed through service in the army auxilia,
composed of peregrines who were granted Roman citizenship on discharge,
but in the Greek-speaking provinces, the army was not a popular career
choice. Citizenship could also be granted collectively to entire communities,
e.g., by raising them to the rank of a titular colonia. An intermediate position
was the so-called Latin status, under which the members of a community
remained peregrine, but the leading officials received the Roman franchise
on their election.13
The most complete documentation for Roman citizens in Bithynia comes
from Prusias ad Hypium, but since a male citizen is easily identified by his
tria nomina, it is also possible to assess the proportion of citizens and pere-
grines in other cities. Furthermore, where the civitas was acquired by imperial
grant, the nomen gentile will be that of the emperor in whose reign the family
received the franchise.
Fernoux (2004) has studied the occurrence of imperial gentilicia in the seven
Bithynian cities, and identified nearly five hundred Roman citizens whose
names imply that their family acquired the citizenship from the emperor.14
When the absolute numbers are related to the duration of each dynasty or
reign, it is possible to estimate the chances of obtaining the Roman citizenship
at different times and in different cities.
Nikaia Nikomedia Prusa All Bithynian

cities15
Total Per year Total Per year Total Per year Total Per year
Julii/ 8 0.08 9 0.09 17 0.17 69 0.69
Claudii
Flavii 7 0.26 15 0.55 8 0.29 49 1.81
Ulpii 1 0.05 5 0.26 0 0 19 1.00
Aelii 5 0.24 27 1.30 9 0.43 84 4.00
Aurelii 80 0.43 91 1.13 3 0.04 277 3.50
Two trends emerge. First, some emperors were more generous in the granting
of citizenship than others; in all three cities, the liberal policy of the Flavians
was followed by Trajan’s more restrictive attitude.16 Second, the presence or
favour of the emperor is an important factor. The visit of Hadrian in the early
120’s is reflected in the high rate of enfranchisements for Bithynia as a whole,

and especially in the number of Aelii – twenty-five! – attested in the relatively
minor city of Klaudioupolis, the birthplace of Hadrian’s lover Antinoos.17
Social stratification
Some cities may have applied a census qualification for membership of the
boulê, and members might be required to pay a honorarium on admittance
to the council; furthermore, many magistracies were liturgies requiring the
holder to contribute from his own purse. Some that were not liturgies, such
as grammateus or politographês, would require literacy and administrative
skills. All told, these factors ensured that by and large, access to a municipal
office and to the city council was restricted to the educated, well-to-do elite;
the “soundest and most intelligent”, as Dion puts it;18 and that conversely,
holding office was attractive as a status symbol: proof that one belonged to
the “soundest and most intelligent” group of citizens.
Within the group that was financially and socially eligible, the chances
of reaching a municipal office were quite good. In fact, precisely because the
pool of potential magistrates was limited, elite members with no political
ambitions might be pressed into standing for office. Some groups succeeded
in obtaining exemption from serving as city councillors and magistrates. It is
significant that one of these groups was philosophers and teachers. Since their
profession already marked them out as “sound and intelligent”, municipal
office-holding held little attraction for them.19
The less well off, and perhaps less educated, had few chances of breaking
into the charmed circle of city politics, but could indulge their ambitions at
the local level, either in their phylê, as members of a gerousia, or in one of the
numerous cultic and professional associations.
In a Bithynian polis, political life mainly concerned those adult males
who resided within the polis territory and enjoyed citizen status. Women,
peregrines, slaves and minors could not participate directly in the political
process; non-resident citizens (such as Dion, who was a citizen of several
Bithynian cities) could, but rarely did. Within this group, there were clear
internal divisions that sometimes, but not always, correspond to formal divi-
sion introduced by the Romans (e.g., census requirements for entry into the
city council). For analytical purposes, we can divide the “political population”
into four sections corresponding to the level of their participation in politi-
cal life: the local or phylê level; the urban or boulê level; the regional or koinon
level; and the imperial level.
The local level

With the introduction of the lex Pompeia, the Bithynian phylai had ceased to
function as voting-districts, and the phylai are never mentioned as a political
force in the speeches of Dion or the letters of Pliny.Yet the phylê organisation
was maintained and continued to function, as is evident both from the renam-
ing of phylai throughout the second century and from the inscriptions set up
by, or in honour of phylarchs. Most of our preserved inscriptions derive from
Prusias ad Hypium and Klaudioupolis, but phylai are known to have existed
in other cities as well (see below for an example from Nikomedia).
A remarkable fact is that, prior to the Constitutio Antoniniana, we know of
so few phylarchs who are Roman citizens. Of the 24 phylê officers of Klaudi-
oupolis named in a list from the year 198, only five have Roman names and
presumably hold the Roman franchise.20 It is equally striking that while some
inscriptions describe urban political careers in great detail, we do not have a
single case where the phylarchate is mentioned in the same cursus as urban
offices, e.g. agoranomos or archon. It appears that participation in the political
life of the local phyle did not attract those who were able to achieve political
office at the urban level.
Some Bithynian careers at the local level

A stone sarcophagus, part of which was discovered in the village of Kayacık
north-eat of Nikomedia, had contained the body of a local dignitary whose
name is illegible. We read that “he several times accompanied (i.e. the em-
peror), served as ambassador, and was [illegible] of the phyle Antonianê.” 21 It is
not surprising that emperors should visit Kayacik from time to time – a day’s
journey from Nikomedia, it provided a convenient overnight stopping-point.
But to serve as ambassador and to “accompany” (parapempein) a visiting em-
peror are honours that usually fall to the leading citizens of the community –
in the case of a city, typically someone at the social level of an archon (such
as M. Aurelius Augianus Philetianus of Prusias ad Hypium, whom we shall
meet below). Perhaps the owner of the sarcophagus was the leading citizen
of his small community, even if he held no office beyond the phylê.
Aurelius Vernicianus hailed from Apameia in Syria but lived and died in
Nikomedia, where he and his wife were buried in an impressive marble sar-
cophagus that is now in the Izmit museum (fig. 18). The inscription on the
sarcophagus relates how Aurelius rose to become phylarch of the phylê hierâ,
which is qualified by the adjective kratistês, “the most important”.22 While this
is an achievement in its own right, one might expect that as a Roman citizen,
Aurelius would have been able to reach an office at a higher level than that
of the phylê; perhaps being an outsider worked against his prospects.
The urban level

Three urban offices recur in most successful political careers: agoranomos,
agonothete and archon (the three A’s), almost invariably in that order. For
most, the crowning achievement of an urban career would be an archontate,
Fig. 18. The sarcophagus of the phylarch Aurelius Vernicianus and his wife Markiane.
Vernicianus was a native of Syrian Apameia but rose to become a phylarch of his adopted
city, Nikomedia. Izmit museum (author’s photo).
perhaps even as the first (senior) archon, but some careerists used their ar-
chontate as a stepping-stone to offices at the regional level of the koinon (see
below).
While phylê officers, as we have seen, are predominantly peregrine, urban
magistrates almost always possess the Roman franchise. In fact, one might
be tempted to hypothesize that the Bithynian cities, like those of Spain, en-
joyed Latin status with Roman citizenship for their chief magistrates. This is,
however, disproved by some recorded careers. Quintus, son of Quintus, was
agoranome and archon of Prusa.23 Domitius, son of Aster, served two terms
as senior archon of Prusias ad Hypium and in numerous other magistracies,
yet remained a peregrine.24 Two peregrine junior archons are known from
the same city.25
The conclusion must be that in Bithynia, magistrates did not become citi-
zens; citizens became magistrates. The Roman franchise was a marker defin-
ing the “bouleutic class” of well-to-do, literate males who dominated urban
politics in the larger communities. In the smaller cities, the circle of potential
citizen candidates would be correspondingly smaller, and peregrines would
have a better chance of reaching a magistracy at the urban level.
Some Bithynian careers at the urban level

M. Aurelius Augianus Philetianus and M. Julius Gavinius Sacerdos26 both started
their careers at the urban level in Prusias ad Hypium, holding the three A’s
in their own names as well as those of their sons; they also held various other
offices. The inscription honouring Aurelius Augianus was set up by his wife
and records that he furnished oil to the city for a period of thirty days, while
in the inscription for Julius Gavinius, his nephew describes the uncle’s bene-
factions in greater detail: money for the restoration of the Domitian baths,
50,000 drachmae for the repair of the agora, a further sum as a contribution
to the construction of a new sewer in the city.
Their investment in the career of their sons evidently paid off: both saw a
son enter the equestrian order. The inscription of Aurelius Augianus identi-
fies him as the “father of an equestrian” while that of Julius Gavinius, with
characteristic attention to detail, gives the son’s rank as military tribune, with
the qualification “twice”.
Both Augianus and Gavinius conserved their energies, and their finan-
cial resources, for the political arena of their home town. Nonetheless, both
came into direct contact with the emperor, “often” (pollakis) appointed to
“accompany” (parapempein) the emperor when he visited their city. This task
included receiving the emperor and his entourage at the entrance to the city,
arranging for their accommodation and entertainment. Hosting an imperial
visit involved considerable expense – for this reason, the task was often shared
among a circle of wealthy citizens27 – but in return, it offered the chance to
meet the emperor and his officials at first hand and to be seen in public with
the emperor, raising one’s prestige in the city.
These two careerists did not do badly for themselves or their descendants.
The father-in-law of Augianus was a phylarch,28 Augianus himself was an
urban councillor and an archon; Augianus junior was an equestrian. In the
course of three generations, the family rose through three levels of the politi-
cal class, from the local to the imperial level.
As his name indicates, T. Flavius Phidiskos received the Roman franchise under
the Flavians. His son T. Flavius Silôn was grammateus of Prusa in Dion’s time,
early in the second century, when he set up a very ornate inscription (fig. 19)
in honour of Trajan ek tôn idiôn, “from his own resources”, giving his titles
as gymnasiarchos and grammateus, with the somewhat self-conscious addition
boulês kai dêmou: “grammateus of the council and of the people”.29 At the time
of writing, T. Flavius Silôn was probably still a young man, and we know
nothing of his later career.
Flavius Severianus Asklepiodotos of Nikaia30 filled a series of administrative of-

fices in his home city: twice agoranomos, treasurer of the corn fund and city
treasurer, before being elected first archon. He also served as syndikos, acting
on behalf of the city in financial matters involving the emperor or the Roman
Fig. 19. Inscription honouring the emperor

Trajan, dedicated by the city secretary (gram-
mateus) T. Flavius Silôn, a contemporary of
Dion Chrysostomos. Bursa Museum (author’s
photo).
authorities. When Caracalla visited Nikaia in 215, coming from Nikomedia,

Asklepiodotos was elected to “accompany” (parapempein) him; on this occasion
he also arranged gladiatorial games and wild beast fights.31 When Elagabal
passed through Nikaia three and a half years later, Asklepiodotos once more
“accompanied” the emperor and also “arranged for him and his army to
winter in the province”. In return, Asklepiodotos was “honoured with the
purple” and appointed priest of the imperial cult. His career is known from
the inscription on the base of a statue erected by the president of the local
gerousia, one Timetianos Poliôn (fig. 31).
The regional level

At the regional level, we again find a clear correlation between social stand-
ing and career patterns.32
Four careers of Bithynians who had reached the regional council, but not
the koinarchate, at the time when the inscription was set up, are epigraphically
attested;33 in every case, the route to the provincial council went via a term of of-
fice as archon or first archon of their cities. On the other hand, none has served
as logistês. All recorded Bithynian koinobouloi held the Roman citizenship.34
Four priests of the regional Imperial cult are known.35 Only for one of
these36 is a previous archontate recorded, and one does not hold the Roman
franchise.37 To win a place on the regional council, on the other hand, it would
seem that citizenship and a previous archontate were quasi-mandatory.
Moving up to the level of the Bithyniarchate, the picture becomes more
complex. Three inscriptions,38 two of which are fragmentary, give no further

information about other offices held. Other koinarchs have a longer list of
previous positions, which in all but two cases39 include either an archontate,
the office of logistês, or both. One path to the Bithyniarchate thus led thrugh
the regular urban cursus, including an archontate; but it was also possible for
an ex-logistês to move directly to the Bithyniarchate without holding any of
the lower offices. Indeed, in the minds of the Bithynian élite, there seems to
be a close link between the office of logistês and that of Bithyniarch, which are
often mentioned together. A second-century inscription honours the son of
Ulpius Titius Aelianus Antoninus who was “Bithyniarch, Pontarch and logistês
of the splendid city of Kios”40 while Ulpius Titius Calpurnianus Fado (third
century AD) was “descended from a Bithyniarch and from logistai, related to
senators and consuls”.41
This nexus between logistês and Bithyniarch is significant in several re-
spects. A logistês (the equivalent of Latin curator rei publicae42) was an imperial
appointee, drawn from the equestrian order; and since the time of Augustus,
the census for this class had been fixed at 400,000 HS. In other words, those
Bithyniarchs who are known to be ex-logistai possessed a sizable personal
fortune. Equestrian status was not a precondition for becoming a Bithyniarch:
Ti. Claudius Piso from Prusias ad Hypium (whose career will be discussed
in more detail below) may have acquired equestrian status after holding the
Bithyniarchate. In social terms, however, the status of a Bithyniarch clearly
approached that of an equestrian.
Some Bithynian careers at the regional level

An unfinished inscription from Prusa (fig. 20) gives part of the career, but not
the name, of a dignitary who was “[Bithyni]arch and Pontarch, twice priest
of the emperor, agonothete and logistês for life of the splendid…”.43 Though
the text was never completed, we may take it that our unnamed dedicand
held no other urban offices; they would presumably have been mentioned
in connection with that of agonothete. The phrase “of the splendid [city]” is
parallelled in other inscriptions.
Belonging to the equestrian order and the political class of the province,
the protagonist of our inscription did not need to go through the stages of a
normal urban career to reach the koinarchate, nor to be selected for the post
of agonothete.
In another inscription, the “Augustan” phyle (phylê sebastênê) of Prusias hon-

ours T. Ulpius Aelianus Papianus, “descendant of a senatorial and consular
family”, Bithyniarch, Pontarch, hierophant and sebastophant, benefactor of
Nikomedia and of the citizens of his native city, politographos for life, deka-
protos, agoranomos during a corn shortage (seitodeia), grammateus, etc., son of
Ulpius Titius Aelianus Antoninus, Bithyniarch, Pontarch and “logistês of the
splendid city of Kios, having held all other urban offices”.44
Fig. 20. This unfinished inscription, now in

the garden of Bursa Museum, was intended
as the base for a statue of a local dignitary
who had served as both “[Bithyni]arch
and Pontarch” and “priest of the emperor”
(author’s photo).
The father of Aelianus Papianus went through the urban cursus before
becoming koinarch and logistês. He was of equestrian status and married into
a senatorial family.45 The Aeliani are wealthy; the son has served as agorano-
mos in a time of crisis and undertaken numerous benefactions not only in his
own city but in Nikomedia – no doubt a wise move if he was aiming for a
Bithyniarchate. It is noteworthy that despite their family’s wealth and social
standing, both father and son has filled almost every post in the municipal
cursus: a family tradition?
The inscription honouring Aurelius Marcianus of Kios46 dates from the reign
of Diokletian. He served as “endikos, boulographos, oinoposiarch, Bithyniarch”
but did not, it would seem, hold any one of the three A’s. According to the
inscription, he was also a “benefactor of the people” and held an office that
cannot now be identified (this part of the inscription is illegible) in the tet-
rakômia or “union of four villages”. Similar local sub-units are known from
other provinces in Asia Minor.47 Our inscription was found within the village
territory of Keramet on the north shore of lake Askanios, c. 25 km by road
from Kios itself and on the very edge of Kian territory. It would appear that
Aurelius was a local landowner who, living a whole day’s journey from the
centre of the polis, could or would not fill any of the traditional magistracies
of an urban cursus. He clearly preferred offices that did not require his pres-
ence in the city on a regular basis. Nonetheless, he was able to cap his career
with a Bithyniarchate.
The phrase “benefactor of the people” is not quite clear; does it refer to the
local population (of the tetrakômia?) or the city as a whole? The last three lines
record that the inscription was set up by one Chrestos, grammateus tou dêmou,
which suggests that in this case, dêmos might refer to the city as such.
The Domitii of Prusias ad Hypium

In 189, the five archons of Prusias ad Hypium dedicated an inscription to the
emperor Commodus. T. Domitius Paulianus Falco, member of a prominent
Prusian family, was first archon, holding this post for the second time.48 His
nephew (or possibly his son) M. Domitius Stratokles likewise served as first
archon and went on to become Bithyniarch and Helladarch, epistates and lo-
gistês.49 His son M. Domitius Paulianus Falco was honoured by the phylarchs
of Prusias with an inscription (fig. 21) acclaiming him as “an intimate of the
emperor (sebatognôtos) … of a senatorial and consular family … first archon,
priest, agonothete, member of the council for life, the first in every respect”.
The phrase “of a senatorial and consular family” (genous synklêtikou kai
hypatikou) is somewhat ambiguous. If Domitius Stratokles was a senator,
why not say so directly? Perhaps it was not Stratokles himself but one of his
brothers or uncles who was of senatorial rank.50 As he had apparently been
logistês on more than one occasion,51 Stratokles was certainly an equestrian,
Fig. 21. Marcus Domitius Paulianus Falco was a friend of the emperor and a much respected
local notable in Prusias ad Hypium. The inscription in his honour now lies in the ancient the-
atre of Konuralp, where less respectful modern-day Prusians have overwritten it with spray
paint (author’s photo).
and his status within Prusian society was high enough for his son Falco to
bypass the position of agoranomos and start his urban career as agonothete,
moving up to become archon, then a permanent member (koinoboulos tou biou)
of the Bithynian council.52
The imperial level

An ambitious Bithynian who wanted to pursue a career at the imperial level
should be prepared to leave his native province and seek his fortune elsewhere
in the empire, in Rome (for a civilian career) or at the frontiers (for a military
career). If that were his ambition, he would need to meet the equestrian cen-
sus of 400,000 HS and be a Roman citizen – ideally, of a family that had been
citizens for at least three generations. A score of equestrians (some of whom
went on to become senators) and somewhat fewer senators of Bithynian back-
ground (among whom the two historians Arrian and Cassius Dion) can be
identified.53 Most spent their entire career outside Bithynia, but a few were
directly involved in the urban politics of their homeland.
Some Bithynian careers at the imperial level

The career of Ti. Claudius Piso is described in great detail in an inscription
of the early third century54 from his native city of Prusias ad Hypium,55 and
it illustrates the routes by which an able and energetic man could work his
way up through the political hierarchy: “To the incomparable, Olympian,
the first man of the province (prôtos eparcheias) by decree of the council of
the koinon, proêgoros, dekaprôtos, poleitographos, archon of his native city and
of the province, judge at Rome, agonothete of his city and of the metropolis,
Bithyniarch, Helladarch, sebastophant of the grand common temple of the
Bithynian koinon and hierophant of the mysteries, grandfather of a senator,
logistês of the splendid metropolis Nikomedia … T. Ulpius Papianus, his friend
[set this up]”. There are some ambiguities in this text, notably in the use of
koinon as against eparch(e)ia. It is not clear how the council of the koinon could
name the “first man of the eparchia” since the eparchia (province) also included
the Pontic koinon. Perhaps eparchia is here used for the territory of the koinon,
i.e. Bithynia; but in that case, archon … tês eparcheias seems redundant as a
synonym for Beithyniarchês.
On the whole, however, Titus seems to have done a very thorough job of
recording his friend’s achievements, and we may take it that no significant
political offices have gone unmentioned. The young Tiberius came of an old-
established citizen family. By virtue of this family’s standing, he was able to
bypass the traditional entry-level office as agoranomos, aiming directly for
the post of agonothete. As an agonothete he could display his social talents
and play the role of euergete; he must also have demonstrated administra-
tive abilities since he went on to fill the posts of poleitographos (registrar of
citizens) and dekaprôtos (tax commissioner) as steps on his way to the urban
archontate. From here he passed on to the regional level, becoming junior

priest of the koinon and Bithyniarch.
It was presumably at this point in his career that Tiberius decided to make
his bid for a position at the imperial level: his legal experience as proêgoros,
i.e. counsel of the koinon or province (here confusingly identified as ethnos)
qualified him for a place on the list of iudices at Rome. Perhaps he intended to
pursue a legal career in the capital but it seems more likely, as suggested by
Fernoux,56 that he viewed the post of iudex as a springboard to the equestrian
order and the subsequent appointment as equestrian logistês of Nikomedia.
The crowning glory of his social anabasis was no doubt seeing his grand-
son Claudius Piso57 rise to the rank of senator during the reign of Septimius
Severus.
Towards the end of the second century, during the reign of Commodus, the
equestrian M. Aurelius Mindius Matidianus Pollio58 was honoured by the city of
Ephesos with a decree recording his services as collector of harbour duties in
the province of Asia over a period of thirty years and, during the same period,
as “logistês of three cities in Bithynia … of the splendid metropolis Nikomedia,
of Nikaia and of Prusa”. Furthermore, he apparently served three terms as
Bithyniarch.59 The combination of high office in Asia and Bithynia, the long
periods of tenure, and the iteration of the Bithyniarchate are all rather un-
usual.60
Pollio’s father was of Ephesian descent and his family had probably been
enfranchised at the mid-second century. His mother’s family came from Apa-
meia in Bithynia and had presumably been Roman citizens for generations.61 If
we take it that he was born in Ephesos and lived there as an adult,62 his success
as a tax administrator may have recommended him to the imperial authori-
ties and suggested him as an impartial logistês of the three major Bithynian
cities. He clearly performed his task to the satisfaction not only of the Ephe-
sians but of the emperor as well, since he went on to pursue an impressive
administrative career in the capital. The appointment of a single logistês for
all three cities implies that at this time, there were few serious problems to
deal with. So does the fact that Pollio apparently retained his Ephesian and
Bithynian posts while at Rome. We may take it that in his case, the office of
logistês was in the nature of a sinecure.
The Cassii of Nikaia

The first member of this prominent Nikaian family known to us is C. Cas-
sius Asklepiodotos, a wealthy Bithynian who in the aftermath of the Vinician
conspiracy (AD 66) was dragged down because of his friendship with Barea
Soranus, one of the conspirators. Unlike some of Soranus’ other associates,
Cassius Asklepiodotos chose to stand by his friend and was punished with
relegation and the confiscation of his estates, but survived to be rehabili-
tated by Galba.63 If he was a near contemporary of Soranus, who was suffect
consul in 52, Cassius Asklepiodotos will have been born towards the end of
Augustus’ reign or early in that of Tiberius. Beyond his rehabilitation in 68,
we know nothing of his further career.
In an orchard some five kilometers northwest of Nikaia stands a remark-
able monument: from a base nearly three metres in height, an obelisk-like
stone spike rises seven metres towards the sky (fig. 22). The “obelisk” it-
self is triangular in cross-section and constructed of large marble blocks; at
least one block is missing, so originally the total height of the monument
must have been close to 12m. The base is wide in relation to the obelisk, and
squared recesses are cut into its top surface. Corresponding holes are found
in the sides of the obelisk itself, to a height of 2.5m above the top of the base
(fig. 23). Clearly, the obelisk originally did not stand alone but was flanked
by life-sized or larger bronze sculptures, whose hands and feet were fixed to
metal cramps in the recesses.
On the rear face of the lowest block of the obelisk, one reads that it was
raised by “C. Cassius Philiskos, son of C. Cassius Asklepiodotos, having lived
83 years”64 (fig. 24). Assuming that Nero’s victim was born c. 12, and his son
c. 37, Philiskos will have died around the year 120. There is no mention of
any municipal offices held by Philiskos himself or his father.
We are not well informed about élite funerary practices in Bithynia (though
the remains of a large Hellenistic stone sarcophagus found outside the east-
Fig. 22. Travelling by road from Nikomedia towards Nikaia, a traveller encountered the obe-
lisk-like monument of the Nikaian notable Cassius Philiskos rising from the fields. The “obe-
lisk” still stands, though the top stone has been lost (author’s photo).
Fig. 23. Detail of the monument, showing

recesses in the side of the vertical stone face,
intended for lead cramps to hold standing
bronze figures. Similar recesses are cut into
the top surface of the base (author’s photo).
Fig. 24. The brief inscription on the rear face

of the monument gives only the name, age and
filiation of Cassius Philiskos (author’s photo).
ern necropolis suggests that Nikaians were not, in general, averse to funerary
ostentation). Still, the combination of obelisk and bronze sculpture sets this
monument in a class by itself. His extravagant monument leaves no doubt
that Cassius was a leading citizen, perhaps the leading citizen of the city; for
any others, a monument of this size and character would have been an intol-
erable display of hybris.
Another Cassius of the first century, C. Cassius Chrestos is known to poster-
ity from the inscriptions in honour of the emperor set up over the north and
east gates of the city (fig. 25): “To the emperor and the imperial house and
to Nikaia, first city of the province, the proconsul M. Plancius dedicated this
through the agency of C. Cassius Chrestos, who set it up”.65 Plancius dedicates
his new gates to the emperor Vespasian.66
Over the arched niches flanking the east gate, two additional inscriptions
were found, one “to the patron of the city, the proconsul M. Plancius Varus,
[from] his friend C. Cassius Chrestos” and an almost identical one from “his
friend Ti. Claudius Quintianus”.67 Şahin and Merkelbach hypothesized that
niches above one or more of the inscriptions may have held a statue of the
proconsul. As patron of the city, the proconsul was clearly its benefactor on
a major scale; though no inscriptions are preserved, we may take it that he
also paid for the restoration of the west and south gates, and there is other
evidence for the proconsul’s generosity elsewhere in the province.68
As the proconsul’s associate, C. Cassius Chrestos must have been a man
of some standing within the community as well. His sarcophagus (fig. 26)
which was found in the necropolis outside the east gate, is a plain, unadorned
stone box. Its inscription69 gives his career as follows: “C. Cassius Chrestos,
presbys [ambassador], archiereus and sebastophant, lived 58 years.” In this
remarkably terse cursus, none of the traditional municipal offices are men-
tioned. The three offices that are named all serve to illustrate Chrestos’ close
relation to the ruling power, just as the inscription over the side arch of the
gate identifies Chrestos as the proconsul’s “friend”. That he was selected as
ambassador shows that Chrestos belongs to the highest level of society, while
his allegiance to the emperor is attested by the two imperial priesthoods,
whose nature is not quite clear. To be worth mentioning in the epitaph, an
archiereus is presumably a priest of the provincial cult, either at the temple in
Nikaia (assuming that it was still functioning at this late date) or, more likely,
in Nikomedia.70 The office of sebastophant may refer to a municipal cult.71
The offices of Chrestos have apparently been listed not chronologically, but
in descending order of social status.
The sarcophagus of Chrestos is intriguing in two other respects. The first
is that despite his expressed pro-Roman orientation, he had himself inhumed
and not cremated. The second is its remarkably modest nature, compared to
the often ornate sarcophagi typical of the region. Both are easily explained if
his sarcophagus was intended to be placed in a pre-existing family tomb.
Şahin and others have suggested that Cassius Chrestos was a son or brother
Fig. 25. The original bronze letters are lost, but the inscription over the east (Lefke) gate of
Nikaia can still be deciphered. At the end of the second line, the name of Cassius Chrestos in
the genitive (“through the agency of…”). Similar inscriptions were found over other gates of
the city (author’s photo).
Fig. 26. The sarcophagus of C. Cassius Chrestos in the garden of Iznik Museum (author’s
photo).
of Asklepiodotos,72 but when the evidence of their burials is taken into ac-
count, it is more likely that they belonged to separate branches of the family.
Chrestos was buried just east of the city, while Philiskos and his relations were
presumably interred near his obelisk, some distance northwest of the city but
close to a country mansion of his branch of the Nikaian Cassii.
We next hear of the Nikaian Cassii at the mid-century.73 Cassius Apronianus (his
praenomen is not known) was born around 140, no later than 145, probably in
Nikaia. He followed a senatorial career and became governor of Lycia-Pam-
phylia around 180; in 182 he transferred to the governorship of Cilicia, where
he was joined by his son, the future historian Cassius Dion. He reached the
consulate in 185 and was appointed governor of Dalmatia, one of the “home
provinces” bordering Italy.
L. Claudius Cassius Dion (Cocceianus?74) was born in Nikaia75 around 164
and was not yet twenty when he went to join his father in Cilicia. He pur-
sued a legal and political career in Rome where, as the son of a senator, he
quickly rose through the traditional cursus. He spent most of his adult life in
the capital, and was approaching sixty when he was appointed to the gover-
norship of his father’s old province, Dalmatia, from which he moved on to
the important frontier province of Pannonia Superior. He attained his second
consulate, shared with the young emperor Alexander Severus, in 229.
From the time we first hear of them, the Cassii belonged to the elite of Nikaia,
at the “imperial” level. Asklepiodotos had friends in the inner circles of the
imperial court; Chrestos boasts of his friendship with the governor of Bithynia-
Pontus; Apronianus was governor of three provinces in turn; Dion was twice
consul. They were also wealthy: even by the standards of the capital, the
wealth of Asklepiodotos was important enough to earn a remark from Taci-
tus, while both Apronianus and Dion were senators. A third point worthy of
note is that as far as we know, none of them ever filled any of the traditional
magistracies at the urban level – one of the three A’s – nor any offices at the
regional level. Admittedly, from the brief mention of Asklepiodotos in Tacitus
or the terse style of Philiskos’ epitaphs, we cannot be certain that these two
never did. But the epitaph of Chrestos mentions nothing beyond his service
as ambassador and imperial priest, while the senatorial careers of Apronianus
and Dion, father and son, left them no time for urban careers.
Notes
1 Fernoux 2004, 146‑147, 185; Corsten 2006, 88 quoting Fernoux 2004, 185..
2 P. Rupilius, Cn. Pupius (Ad Fam. 13.9), L. Egnatius Rufus (13.47), Pinnius (13.61),
Atilius (13.62), L. Aelius Lamia, M. Laenius (13.63), P. Terentius Hispon (13.65);
for a detailed commentary, Fernoux 2004, 147‑155. Cicero’s remark (De lege agraria
2.40, quoted by Corsten 2006, 92) about Bithynia, quod certe publicum est populi
Romani factum, is hardly relevant to this issue.
3 Fernoux 2004, 154, table 9 listing fourteen gentilicia “dont beaucoup sont rarement
attestés ailleurs que dans leur berceau géographique d’origine en Italie”.
4 E.g. C. Hostilius Ascanius of Nikaia (IK 9.34) who was probably of Greek servile
descent and identifies himself as a banker (trapezeitês).
5 TAM 4.1.70, naming P. Vedius Cornelianus Strato.
6 Corsten 2006, 89; for a more detailed survey and methodological discussion, see
Fernoux 2004, 73‑93.
7 Fernoux 2004, 160.
8 Madsen 2006, 74.
9 Fernoux 2004, 73. One also notes the high proportion of Thracian names in the
inscription IK 26.7 from Melitoupolis.
10 Corsten 2006, 88.
11 [Ca]tilius Longus, P.f. (PIR L 309); for his biography, Fernoux 2004, 416‑417.
12 Fernoux 2004, 478.
13 Spain, for instance, appears to have received Latin status for its cities under the
reign of Vespasian; Pliny, HN 3.30; cf. Richardson 1996, 190‑191.
14 Fernoux 2004, 201, tab. 11.
15 Nikaia, Nikomedia, Prusias ad Hypium, Bithynion-Klaudioupolis, Prusa, Kios,
Apameia.
16 Pliny, Ep. 10.10‑11.
17 Fernoux 2004, 205.
18 Or. 50.1.
19 E.g., Flavius Archippos (Pliny, Ep 10.58), or the rhetor Aelius Aristides, who went
to great lengths to avoid a priesthood in the province of Asia. For the status of
philosophers within the community, cf. IK 39.18.
20 For the text of the list and a discussion of the names, see Marek 2002, 32‑33;
38‑39.
21 TAM 4.1.329.
22 Şahin 1973, no. 32 = TAM 4.1.258. Other phylai also claimed the titles of kratistês
for themselves, e.g. the phylê Plotinianê (Şahin 1973, no. 33 = TAM 4.1.238.).
23 IK 39.16.
24 IK 27.2.
25 IK 27.38.
26 IK 27.20; 50; Fernoux 2004, 432‑434.
27 Fernoux 204, 413‑414.
28 IK 27.6; Fernoux 2004, 434.
29 IK 39.3.
30 IK 9.60; commentary in Guinea Diaz 1997, 223‑224.
31 For Caracalla’s love of such displays on his travels, see Cassius Dion 77.9.
32 For a list of officials at the regional level, see Fernoux 2004, 350‑352, table 18.
33 P. Domitius Julianus (IK 27.19); M. Domitius Paulianus Falco (IK 27.7); M. Aurelius
Asklepiodotianos Asklepiades (IK 27.11); ignotus (TAM 4.1.42).
34 The name, and thus the legal standing, of the koinoboulos named in TAM 4.1.42
is not preserved, but since he had previously been agoranome and first archon
of his native Nikomedia, we can take it that he held the Roman civitas.
35 It is not always possible to say for certain whether a priest is attached to a regional
or municipal cult. I have chosen to follow Fernoux 2004, 352‑354.
36 P. Aelius Timotheos from Nikomedia (TAM 4.1.33).
37 Sacerdos, son of Menander, from Prusa (IK 39.24).
38 Aesquilinus (Inschr. Askl. 151); M. Domitius Iulianus; [?] Moschos.

39 The exceptions are Ti. Claudius Tertullianus Sanctus (IK 27.51) who was ago-
ranome, agonothete and grammateus – but apparently not archon – in Prusias
ad Hypium, and Aurelius Marcianus (IK 29.7 = IK 10.726) who was endikos,
boulographos and oinoposiarch in Kios or Nikaia.
40 IK 27.17.
41 IK 27.54.
42 CJ 1.54.3 ; Curator rei publicae, qui graeco vocabulo logista nuncupatur.
43 IK 39.13.
44 cf. Fernoux 2004, 474‑476, PIR2 U 537‑538.
45 That is, assuming that the senatorial and consular progonoi claimed by Aelianus
junior are maternal ancestors. If they are his paternal ancestors, then the status of
the Aeliani has recently been reduced from senatorial to equestrian – a déroute
the family would hardly want to advertise in an honorific inscription.
46 IK 29.7.
47 Corsten in IK 29, p. 82.
48 IK 27.38.
49 IK 27.7.
50 Ameling, IK 27 p. 55; Fernoux 2004, 476.
51 Apo logisteiôn, IK 27.7 line 12 and Ameling ad loc., p. 55.
52 There were other prominent Domitii in Prusias ad Hypium, e.g. M. Domitius
Valerianus (PIR2 D 168) who attained a suffect consulship under Gordian III.
53 Fernoux 2004, 416‑445 (equestrians), 446‑477 (senators)
54 To judge from its place in his cursus, Piso’s term as logistês postdates the thirty-
year term of Matidianus Pollio (see below), which would have ended c. 190.
55 IK 27.47; PIR2 C 961; Fernoux 2004, 429‑431.
56 Fernoux 2004, 430.
57 PIR2 C 960; for his career, see Fernoux 2004, 471.
58 PIR2 A 1559
59 IK 13.627 = IK 40.T2. The name of Commodus in line 13 was subsequently erased
during his period of memoria damnata from 193 to 195. Cf. also ILS 8858.
60 Of course, we need not take the round number thirty to mean that Pollio held
both offices for exactly 30 years. It could well be that he was customs collector
for about thirty years and that “during the same time” (kata to auto), i.e. while a
customs collector, he also served as logistês. See also Deininger 1965, 61; 151; De
Laet 1949, 276.
61 For Pollio’s family background and biography, see Pflaum 1960 no. 193; Campanile
1993, 347; Campanile 1994, 67‑68; Fernoux 2004, 418‑419.
62 He served as archiereus there for a five-day period, in the course of which he gave
a series of shows with wild “African animals”; IK 13.627, Carter 2004, 47‑48.
63 Tacitus, Annals 15.33; Cassius Dion 62.26 (with the additional information
that Asklepiodotos was a Nikaian and that he was rehabilitated by Galba); PIR2
C 486.
64 IK 9.85.
65 IK 9.25-28; Şahin 1978, 12‑14.
66 For the date, see Şahin’s comments to IK 9.25.
67 IK 9.51-52; Şahin 1978, 14‑15.
68 Şahin 1978, 14; Merkelbach 1987, 16.
69 I have followed the emendation of the first line proposed by Şahin (IK 7.4)
though there is not quite enough space for the kai in line 1 if the inscription – as
it seems – was intended to be symmetrical.
70 Şahin 1978, 16‑17 and IK 9.116 (Nikaia); Fernoux 2004, 527 (Nikomedia). The
latter appears more likely, given the absence of other inscriptional evidence for
an imperial cult at Nikaia before the third century.
71 Against the interpretation of Fernoux (2004, 352), if a sebastophant is subordinary
to an archiereus, then it would be meaningless for Cassius Chrestos to give both
titles on his sarcophagus, unless they referred to different cults.
72 E.g., Şahin 1978, 17: “es bestand sicher ein enges Verwandtschaftsverhältnis …
[Asklepiodotos] könnte der Vater oder ein Bruder des Cassius Chrestus gewesen
sein”; less emphatically Fernoux 2004, 487, “peut-être un fils ou un frère”.
73 There is no good evidence that M. Cassius Agrippa (Fernoux 2004, 441, no. 20)
and [? Cas]sius Agrippa (Fernoux 2004, 461‑462, no. 35), nor M. Cassius Nikadas
(IK 10.1065; 1071) were related to the Cassii of Nikaia.
74 The cognomen Cocceianus is only found in late sources. For Cassius Dion’s pos-
sible family relationship to Dion of Prusa, Millar 1964, 11.
75 Photios, Bibl. 71 (35b).
7. A Political Biography:
Dion Chrysostomos
Family background
For no other local politician of the Roman world do we possess anything ap-
proaching the amount of detail at our disposal concerning the life and career
of Dion “Chrysostomos”, the golden-mouthed rhetor of the second sophistic
in Prusa. For better or for worse, almost all this information comes from Dion
himself, in the nearly eighty speeches that have survived down to the present
day, Apart from that, scattered information is found in the letters of Pliny,
in the Lives of the Sophists by Philostratos and in a Byzantine literary history,
the Bibliothêke of Photios.
By birth, Dion was a third-generation, possibly a fifth-generation, Prusan.
His maternal grandfather was a Roman citizen and a wealthy benefactor of
the city, spending, if we are to believe Dion, “all that he had inherited from
his father and grandfather, until he had nothing left; then acquired a second
fortune by learning and from imperial favour”.1 He was a friend of “the em-
peror”.2 Of the paternal grandfather we know nothing, of his father very little.
When Dion mentions his parents together, the father is always mentioned in
the inferior position.3 His mother had clearly married below her own status
level, and while her family possessed the Roman franchise, the father was
almost certainly a peregrinus.4 Since the maternal grandfather received his
Roman citizenship from Claudius, the name of Dion’s mother was Claudia.
According to Photios, the father’s first name was Pasikrates.5 As the son of a
citizen mother and a peregrine father, Dion himself was born a peregrinus. If
he received his citizenship from Vespasian or Titus, his name will have been
(Titus?6) Flavius Dion; the additional cognomen Cocceianus may have been
taken later – it is attested only in Pliny’s correspondence with Trajan7 – to
advertise his friendship with the emperor Nerva.
Dion’s rural property included vineyards in the farming belt surrounding
Prusa and herds of cattle.8 Within the city, he owned a town house (presum-
ably inherited from his father) and a row of workshops that he rented out.9
Since the workshops were in the part of the city “near the hot springs” (epi
tôn thermôn) we may take it that Dion’s family residence was also located in
this attractive suburban area.
We are furthermore informed by Dion himself that his father’s fortune
was “said to be large, but small in value” and combined with the information
that “four hundred thousand [drachmas] were in outstanding debts” without

security (asphaleia),10 the conclusion must be that Dion’s father, among his
other business activities, was a moneylender of the more speculative sort, of-
fering loans without security at correspondingly high rates. There is no other
way to explain how Dion could expect his audience to accept his claim that
an inheritance of 400,000 drachmas (equal to 1.6 million HS, four times the
equestrian property qualification) was “not large”, even if it had to be divided
among Pasikrates’ heirs. The sums originally lent by Dion’s father were no
doubt much smaller, but with the rapid accretion of compound interest, the
nominal value of the bad debts would soon reach an extravagant level; their
real worth was of course far less, as his audience would appreciate.
The picture of Dion’s background that emerges from the scattered autobio-
graphical material may be summarised as follows. Claudia came from one of
the city’s leading families; Pasikrates was a parvenu who made a considerable
fortune for himself by letting houses and lending money rather than by the
traditional upper-class occupation of farming. Like Matidianus Pollio (above,
p. 109), Pasikrates married upwards and into an established family of Roman
citizens. His son Dion grew up in a wealthy suburb near the hot springs, among
families that perhaps included some of his father’s debtors. We may imagine
that Pasikrates was charismatic, a risk-taker and something of an optimist in
economic matters, qualities often found in businessmen and certainly found in
his son. His family background could have posed a problem for young Dion.
Social climbers are rarely held in high esteem by those already at the top, and
money-lenders tend to be feared rather than respected by their neighbours. As
the son of an arriviste, the relationship of the young Dion to his contemporaries
was perhaps not an easy one. It may be significant that as far as we know, Dion
did not find his wife among the upper class of Prusa.
Nonetheless, when Pasikrates died and the estate passed into the hands
of his children,11 Dion made a determined attempt to fill his rôle as a mem-
ber of Prusa’s municipal élite. He ran for public office and undertook several
liturgies, even some of the more onerous ones.12 In public and possibly also
in private, he identified himself with the ideology of Prusa’s landowning
class. This comes out very clearly in the earliest of his extant municipal ora-
tions, addressed to the ekklêsia during a grain shortage in Prusa. The choice
of arguments reflects the traditional patronising arrogance of the wealthy
squire: I am not nearly as rich as you think; I have already borne my share of
the burden on earlier occasions; the high grain price is not unreasonable and
there are other cities where it is always that high; true need leads to wisdom
(sophrosynê).13
From imperial favour to exile

Not long after, Dion left his hometown for Rome. Of his life in the capital
we know comparatively little.14 He studied with the Stoic philosopher Mu-
A Political Biography: Dion Chrysostomos 121
sonius Rufus and moved in the highest circles of society where he made the
acquaintance of the later emperor Nerva, the emperor Titus and the latter’s
cousin, T. Flavius Sabinus. Early in the reign of Domitian, Flavius Sabinus
fell from grace and was executed. His friend Dion was brought down with
him but escaped with a sentence of relegatio and interdictio certorum locorum.
This, the mildest form of exile, banned him from Rome and his native prov-
ince but left him otherwise free to travel.15 The thirteenth oration of Dion is
devoted to his exile, and here, he relates how in the course of his wanderings
he visited the oracle at Delphi. Encouraged by Apollon, he turned away from
the sophistic activities of his youth and followed the vocation of an itinerant
philosopher.16 Most modern scholars reject the story of Dion’s philosophical
conversion as fictional and with it, the division of his work into a “sophistic”
and a “philosophical” phase. But assuming that Dion made this story up, he
may have been motivated by a self-awareness that his outlook had changed
over time and a perceived need to justify the difference in between his ear-
lier and later writings. Given his traumatic experiences in Rome and during
fifteen years of exile, it is not surprising that he should have reached a dif-
ferent perception of the human condition, even if this was not the fruit of a
divinely inspired conversion.
One field where a clear difference between the pre-exilic and the post-exilic
Dion is clearly visible is in his attitude to local politics. When Dion returns
to Prusa, he no longer identifies himself with the municipal elite and makes
no attempt to win a place for himself in the political agôn; on the contrary,
he assumes the role of the philosopher-advisor and, apart from heading an
embassy to Rome, does not undertake any municipal office. Why?
The banal explanation would be that on his return to Prusa, Dion could
not resume his place in the city’s political class because he did not have suf-
ficient funds to undertake liturgies. Indeed, in a later speech, he complains
that his property had been ruined, his land seized and his slaves allowed to
escape during his exile.17 Yet his sister was living in Prusa and would surely
have kept an eye on the family property,18 and Dion makes no mention of his
personal financial troubles until, some years after his return, he is challenged
to meet his pollicitatio for a building project.
It seems more likely that to Dion, the meeting with Roman high society
had been an eye-opener, revealing that the exalted status that the magnates
of Prusa enjoyed, and to which his father had aspired, counted for very little
in the wider context of the Empire. The estate of a millionaire like Pasikrates
was impressive in its own right and even when compared with an Italian
multi-millionaire like the younger Pliny (whose total assets perhaps amounted
to 10 million HS) – but it was puny compared with the enormous fortunes
amassed by Seneca or by Claudius’ freedman secretary, Pallas. Wealth on
this scale was not accumulated through farming or moneylending, but by
exploiting the favour of the emperor. Dion’s self-confidence was matched by
his ambition, and he may well have dreamed of creating a fortune of his own
“by imperial favour” as his grandfather had done. When the fall of Flavius
Sabinus destroyed these hopes, Dion’s reaction followed the classic Aeso-
pian pattern: he renounced what he could not attain, and chose the persona
of a wandering philosopher for himself. In this sense, there may be some
substance to the story of Dion’s “conversion” – and it would not be unlike
Dion to transform the tale of his failure at Rome into a narrative of divine
inspiration at Delphi.
Return
When Domitian died in September 96, Dion’s relegatio was revoked. The
Prusans gave him a warm welcome, as can be seen from his forty-fourth ora-
tion, given some time after his return and probably in the spring or summer
of 97.19 Dion opens with a quotation from Homer, “nothing is sweeter than
one’s native land”,20 and goes on to praise his fellow-citizens and express his
gratitude for the honours they have proposed As far as we can judge from
this and his later orations,21 Dion never made any attempt to stand for public
office or undertake municipal liturgies in Prusa. Of course, the junior litur-
gies – e.g., gymnasiarch or agoranomos – would hardly be relevant for some-
one of his age and social standing (and in any case, he may have filled some
of these before his exile).22 One would have imagined, however, that the post
of agonothete, with its opportunities for public display and oratory, might
have appealed to him. Even more surprisingly, for all his efforts to transcend
the stifling confines of small-town politics, there is no evidence that he was
active within the koinon.
He did, however, assume a task for which he – philosopher, rhetor, cos-
mopolite and friend of the emperor – was singularly qualified: leading a
municipal embassy to Rome. The forty-fourth oration was presumably held
after Dion had been nominated as head of the delegation, and it ends with
Dion’s reading of a letter from the emperor (unfortunately not preserved)
which served to document his close ties with Nerva.
Dion also found time to visit Nikomedia and Nikaia. The visit to Niko-
media was prompted by the city’s offer of an honorary citizenship and in
his speech of acceptance (Or. 38), Dion shares some of the insights gained in
Rome with his audience. The Leitmotif of the speech is the need for concord,
homonoia, between the Nikomedians and the neighbouring city of Nikaia. It
may seem odd that in return for the distinction they have offered him, Dion
should harangue an audience of his honorary fellow-citizens in this manner.
But homonoia and its opposite, stasis, were favourite themes in Greek politi-
cal philosophy generally and in the work of Dion, so the example offered by
Nikomedia and Nikaia was too good to pass up. The two cities had been en-
gaged in competition for titles and formal “primacy” – proteia – since Octavian
established the imperial cult in Bithynia, and this rivalry had increased under
the Flavians. On its coinage, Nikomedia now also claimed the title “first city”
Fig. 27. Seated statue of a philosopher, Bursa

Museum (author’s photo).
which the Nikaians had previously reserved for themselves.23 At great length,
Dion explains how the inability of Nikaia and Nikomedia to cooperate leaves
them open to exploitation by unscrupulous persons, criminals24 and grasping
governors who bribe the cities with empty titles25 and go unpunished since
the cities cannot agree to prosecute them.26 Indeed, Dion tells his audience,
this childish love of titles is derided by leading Romans who look down on
what they call “Greek diseases” (hellênika hamartêmata).27 Dion’s solution to
the problem at hand – the question of proteia – is that both cities should be
“first”. Predictably, it failed to gain the sympathy of his hearers and from the
evidence of the coinage, it appears that the Nikomedians insisted on claiming
exclusive proteia for themselves.
Because Dion’s thirty-ninth oration, supposedly held in Nikaia, also deals
with concord, it is generally taken to be contemporaneous with the thirty-
eighth, though it makes no direct mention of a conflict with Nikomedia (unlike
the Nikomedian oration, where references to Nikaia abound) and it is primar-
ily concerned with internal concord and its benefits. Perhaps the Nikaians had
recently gone through a period of civil conflict; it is not clear whether Dion’s
detailed exposition of the many benefits of homonoia is intended as a veiled
warning to those who would stir up discord, or whether it is merely a rhe-
torical showpiece on a familiar theme. Apart from Dion’s concluding invoca-
tion of the founding deities,28 there are few specific references to Nikaia, and
some of the arguments are also found in the thirty-fourth oration addressed
to the people of Tarsos.29 The oration is uncharacteristically brief, and Dion
apologizes for abbreviating his presentation because his health and his voice
are failing him.30
In both cities, Dion strikes the pose of the teacher – to be more precise, the
lecturer. He makes few attempts to be pedagogic or maieutic, apart from a
sprinkling of biological and historical parallels to bolster his preconceived ar-
guments. The patronising attitude of his early oration 46 resurfaces in orations
38 and 39, but the speaker is no longer the condescending squire addressing
his social inferiors, rather a teacher or father lecturing his pupils or children.
Occasionally, he employs the first person plural for rhetorical effect, so that
the Nikomedians may understand that Dion considers himself one of them:
“if we gain the primacy, then what?”31 But otherwise the Nikomedians are
generally, and the Nikaians exclusively, addressed in the second person.
In Nikaia, Dion complained that he was falling ill; it may have been the
same illness that led him to postpone his departure for Rome as leader of the
Prusan delegation to the emperor. By the time he was ready to leave, word
had arrived that a new emperor had ascended the throne.
Success abroad
The news of Nerva’s death must have come as a severe blow to Dion. While
their relationship may never have been quite as close as he was later to claim,32
we have no reason to doubt that Dion had known Nerva at Rome in the
seventies. The successor was a different matter. Despite Dion’s insistence on
the philanthrôpia kai spoudê shown him by Trajan33 and the extravagantly tall
story found in Philostratos34 (and nowhere else) about that emperor’s affec-
tion for Dion, there is little real evidence for a personal relationship between
the two and no indication that their contact antedated Trajan’s accession.35
Unlike Nerva, who was some ten years older than Dion and pursued a politi-
cal career at Rome (he was consul ordinarius for 71) during Dion’s time in the
capital, Trajan was some fifteen years Dion’s junior and followed a military
career, reaching the quaestorship in 78 (possibly later) and becoming praetor
in 84, by which time Dion had been exiled from Rome.
Nerva’s adoption of Trajan came as a surprise to most political observ-
ers36 and no doubt to Dion as well. A few months after news of the adoption
reached Bithynia, Nerva was dead, and the new emperor was an unknown
quantity. Furthermore, at his accession in January 98, Trajan was at Cologne –
more than 2,000 kilometres from Prusa – and did not enter the capital until
late in the following year. Late in 99 or, more likely, early in 100, Dion and
his Prusan delegation finally met up with Trajan. Dion, however, had put
the intervening period to good use composing four orations “on kingship”
to present before the emperor.37
Ambassadors were usually drawn from the top echelons of provincial
society38 and Dion’s readiness to accept the leadership of an embassy reveals

where he saw himself in the social hierarchy of Prusa: marked out for higher
tasks than the mundane liturgies of the traditional municipal cursus. In a
person of good family and established reputation such as Dion’s near-con-
temporary Cassius Chrestos of Nikaia (above, p. 112), such an attitude might
be accepted. In a recently returned exile whose father was a moneylender, it
may well have raised some eyebrows among the better families of Prusa who
already found Dion’s behaviour a size too large for his status. While biding
their time for the moment, they were ready to launch a smear campaign when
opportunity presented itself.
In the event, Dion’s voyage to Rome39 was a considerable success. The flat-
tery of the Orations on kingship may have played their part; in addition, Trajan
was eager to present his rule as a break with the Domitianic past: since Dion
had been one of that emperor’s victims, Trajan could be relied on to accom-
modate him up to a point, but no further. Prusa was granted the extension of
the city council that the city had asked for, and likewise its own assizes, but
not eleutheria, “freedom” from taxes and full independence for the city. This
had been a Prusan pipe-dream since the days of Dion’s grandfather, no doubt
revived in the sixties by Nero’s grant of eleutheria to the cities of Achaia – a
concession that was soon reversed by the economical Vespasian. For that
was the crux of the matter: a responsible emperor could not grant immunity
from taxation left and right without endangering the financial stability of the
empire, and there was no obvious reason why Prusa – founded by Rome’s
arch-enemy Hannibal – should be singled out for this privilege among hun-
dreds of other Greek poleis.
Opposition at home
When Dion returned to Prusa late in 100 or early in 101, he might have ex-
pected a warm welcome and the gratitude of his fellow-citizens for the con-
cessions he had achieved for Prusa; but that was not what he found. On the
contrary, he faced severe public criticism on several counts: his conduct of
the embassy to Rome and the handling of a building project in Prusa. From
a lengthy speech (Or. 40) given shortly after his return and devoted to refut-
ing the attacks of his opponents, we get a fairly precise impression of their
nature.40
The first, and in a sense the most damaging, set of accusations was that
Dion had neglected his duties as leader of the delegation, that the emperor
had not been pleased to see him – a clear counter-challenge to Dion’s own
claim of friendship with Trajan – and that in consequence, Prusa had failed
to obtain the same concessions as other cities, notably Smyrna.41 That Dion
returns to this subject in a later speech (Or. 45) bears witness to the success
of his opponents’ smear campaign and the efficacy of informal weapons in
the political arena.
The second point of attack concerns a building project that Dion has initi-
ated, apparently before leaving Prusa for Rome. As it involves a colonnade
and is on a sufficiently large scale to require the permission of the governor,42
the overall ambition may have been to provide Prusa with a colonnaded main
street that would place it on a level with other major cities of the East.43 Dion
obtained the necessary permission from the governor and solicited contribu-
tions from leading members of the community.44 These would be in the nature
of pollicitationes or hyposchêseis, i.e. formal undertakings to make a financial
contribution. His project for the embellishment of the city centre inevitably
involved demolishing existing buildings, some of which – so his detractors
now claim – had historical or sentimental value.45
The third accusation concerns the extension of the city’s council with a
hundred new members. There seems to have been a concern on the part of
Dion’s opponents that he would seize the chance to fill the vacant seats with
his friends and allies, presumably of a more democratic orientation than the
established oligarchs. That Dion refutes this allegation in some detail46 indi-
cates that his fellow-citizens had taken it seriously.
Dion’s opponents in Prusa had obviously taken advantage of his absence
to foment opposition against him and against his projects. But who were
those opponents, and why did they disapprove so strongly of his initiatives?
In his political speeches, Dion does not identify his adversaries by name, but
his oblique references to “certain persons” scattered throughout his orations
(and supplemented by gestures, glances and postures, which the written text
fails to capture) left his hearers in no doubt who was the intended target. In
the fortieth oration, Dion informs us that his opponents attempted to “pre-
vent anyone making a contribution” to the proposed building project.47 Most
of the potential contributors are to be found among Prusa’s propertied élite;
and since they would hardly yield to pressure from their social inferiors, the
opposition to Dion’s project must come from their equals or superiors – in
other words, from Prusa’s wealthy upper class, corresponding to the évergétes
of Veyne and the Honoratioren of Quass.
Several of Dion’s other clues point in the same direction. In the forty-fifth
oration (held some time later, but devoted to the same topics as the fortieth)
Dion laments that “leading and highly honoured” citizens of Prusa should
be so unambitious on the city’s behalf48 and later in the same speech, proph-
esies that “certain persons” who are at present veiling their hostility towards
him behind “mild and ambiguous” words will eventually attempt to block
(kôlyein) his project.49
What had Dion done to alienate the honoratiores of Prusa? The charge that
Dion neglected his duties as ambassador can be discounted; it is merely an
instrument in a smear campaign. The other two issues, his building project
and his alleged attempt to manipulate the composition of the boulê are related
in one respect: they both challenge the traditional monopoly of municipal
decision-making held by the Honoratiorenschicht, the “benefactors” and litur-
gists of Prusa. The energetic Dion had immersed himself profoundly in the
details of the construction project, measuring the site and selecting suitable
building materials in the quarries behind Prusa.50 He had solicited contribu-
tions (in the form of pollicitationes) from the wealthy citizens and he had ap-
proached the Roman governor on behalf of the city.51 He had, in short, filled
all the functions of the traditional civic benefactor.
Once the sensibilities of the bouleutic class had been ruffled, it is easy to
understand that the addition of a hundred extra members to Prusa’s council
was seen as another threat to elite dominance. As the boulê was essentially
recruited “from the top down”, the new members would necessarily be drawn
from a lower social and economic class than the incumbents. This was only
natural and would under other circumstances have been an acceptable price
for the benefits – financially and in terms of prestige – of extending the city
council. Conflicts arose either because the motives for the extension were
called into question or because the rivalry between the contenders for the
vacant seats degenerated into factionalist politics. The latter explanation is
the one given by Dion – trying to place himself in the best possible light –
who blames the disturbance on political “clubs” (hetaireiai). To avoid being
associated with any party, he says, Dion absented himself from Prusa during
the last days of the council elections.52 If we accept his version of the events,
there was no substance to the allegation that Dion was trying to manipulate
the composition of the council, but the fears upon which it was based were
real enough.53
As for the charge that he was destroying historic landmarks, Dion reduces
this to the question of an old smithy; while some may claim that it had sen-
timental value, according to Dion it was an eyesore, and when the governor
visited the city, the citizens were ashamed that he should see such an old and
dilapidated a building in the centre of the city.54
Homonoia with Apameia

No doubt Dion was, in his own view, acting from the best motives, and he
had clearly not anticipated the hostile reaction to his initiatives. Otherwise he
would not have gone on to present an ambitious scheme for a union with the
neighbouring city of Apameia, camouflaged under his pet theme of homonoia.
During his absence in Rome, there had been a conflict between the Apameians
and the Prusans.55 This matter is in the process of being settled to everyone’s
satisfaction when Dion now proposes to carry the process one step further,
ostensibly towards “concord” but effectively towards a synoikism. The exact
nature of this project may have been elaborated in the last part of oration 40,
which is lost. In oration 45 he looks back on the failure of his initiative and
states clearly that his vision was a synoikism of the region’s cities, including
Apameia, with Prusa as its centre.56
The timing of the proposal for homonoia with Apameia was not ideal and
apparently Dion’s intervention was provoked by a motion laid before the

assembly by one of the archons.57 Dion’s suggestion was unlikely to please
his critics among the councillors, for not only did it once again place Dion
at the centre of attention, it also meant that the bouleutic elite, having just
agreed to share their power with an additional hundred Prusans, should now
welcome another hundred or more Apameians into their circle, and possibly
a number of Kians as well.58 If the original size of Prusa’s council was two
hundred, the original members could soon find themselves a minority within
the bouleutic elite.
Apameia was a colonia, the only Roman colony in all of Bithynia, and to
judge from their dealings with Pliny, its leaders were highly conscious of the
privileges that colonial status entailed, even vis-à-vis a Roman governor.59
From their point of view, what would the Apameians stand to gain from a
synoikism with the larger but lower-ranking city of Prusa? Dion’s forty-first
oration, devoted to this subject and held in Apameia, fails to provide any
answers. The speech is short, no more than 14 chapters, of which the first ten
are devoted to an encomium of Apameia and a detailed description of Dion’s
family connection with the city;60 the last four to a very general exposition of
the virtues of homonoia. We find the same asymmetry that was observed in
Dion’s speeches on homonoia between Nikomedia and Nikaia. In the fortieth
oration, as in the Nikomedian, Dion expounded the comparative advantage
of both cities: for Prusa, access to the sea; for Apameia, to Prusan timber re-
sources.61 The Apameian oration is nearly as short as its Nikaian counterpart.
Both confine themselves to lofty and abstract matters and avoid discussing
mundane realities. Even the Prusan timber, allegedly so attractive to the Apa-
meians, gets no mention at all.62
Neither the Nikomedian/Nikaian nor the Prusan/Apameian orations on
homonoia show signs of long or profound preparation. In both cases, their
composition was prompted by a specific event: in the first, the grant of Niko-
median citizenship to Dion; in the second, the archon’s motion in the Prusan
assembly. As Salmeri notes,63 the images and examples used are not par-
ticularly original; Dion or any other competent rhetorician could at short
notice work this material into a passable oration on a familiar subject such as
homonoia. Speaking retrospectively a short time later, Dion – not often given to
self-deprecation – acknowledges that others may call his vision a “childish or
foolish … desire”.64 The word “desire” (erôs) is used deliberately and echoed
a little further on where Dion compares his repeated speeches in favour of
synoikism to the talk of lovers (erôntes).65 The apologetic implication is obvi-
ous and would be immediately understood by his hearers: Dion’s proposal
for a Prusan-Apameian synoikism may have been impulsive and reckless,
but it was heartfelt, and the audience should bear with him because he was
motivated by love of the patris, just as one must excuse lovers for sometimes
speaking impulsively and without due deliberation.
There is no reason to suspect Dion of insincerity. No doubt he regrets
Fig. 28. Prusan notable of the Roman period. Bursa Museum (author’s photo).
having launched the synoikism project at an unpropitious time and is sorry

for the antagonism that it provoked, coming on the heels of the extension
of the boulê; on the other hand he does not explicitly renounce it and seems
convinced that it represents the way forward for Prusa and Apameia.66 His
problem is that his outlook is so different from that of his audience: he views
Prusa and Bithynia in their imperial context, while his listeners are content
to view their city in isolation. As Dion correctly sees it, petty poleis like Prusa,
Kios or Apameia will never achieve greatness on their own.
To his Prusan audience, such arguments made little sense. The place of
their city in the imperial scheme of things was not important to them and the
mere idea that cities could be fused into larger units was difficult to grasp. In
the first book of his Politics, Aristotle introduced the concept of the polis by
ascending stages of natural social organisation: marriage, the household, the
village, the polis.67 To the average middle-class thinker, the many points in
common between households and poleis were more obvious than the subtle
differences distinguishing them from each other. In the world-view of Dion’s
audience, the Prusan polis was not really that different from a household, and
just as no householder would want his house amalgamated with his neigh-
bour’s, why should anyone want his ancestral polis united with that of the
neighbouring Apameians?
Stasis and katharsis at Prusa

After the supernumerary councillors had been appointed, Dion’s synoikism
project had been shelved and the rumours of his failure as an ambassador
been forgotten or laid to rest, the controversial building project still remained.
It was moving forward at a slow pace, and evidently Dion’s detractors were
still exploiting the sentimental value of the “smithy of so-and-so” that Dion
had caused to be torn down.68 The central theme of oration 47 is Dion’s refu-
tation of those who criticise his handling of the colonnade project,69 but in-
evitably, there are a number of digressions en route. The style of the piece
shifts between heavy irony and despondent disillusion; the latter may partly
be rhetorical effect but also a genuine reflection of Dion’s disappointment
with the unenthusiastic reaction of his fellow-citizens. He notes that some
of the greatest Greek intellectuals – Zenon, Kleanthes, Chrysippos, Pythago-
ras, Homer – chose to live far from their native cities.70 Sokrates on the other
hand chose to remain among the Athenians, but earned no gratitude from
them;71 Aristotle used his influence at court to have Stageira resettled after its
destruction by Philip, but later came to regret it.72 Despite the depressed and
disappointed tone of this passage, Dion’s choice of examples is proof that his
professional self-esteem is intact.
It would be useful to know something about Dion’s domestic affairs at this
stage in his life. Presumably the sister’s death and Dion’s inheritance have
improved his financial situation, although – in typically Dionian fashion – he
insists that her estate has brought him no benefits.73 His main sources of in-
come would be his estates and teaching fees. Though the teaching income of
a Prusan sophist was not comparable to that of the most popular professors
in Smyrna, Ephesos or Athens,74 Dion did collect an audience of pupils during
this period, two of whom (Polemo and Favorinus) rose to later prominence in
their own right.75 Certainly Dion’s financial situation has improved somewhat,
for whereas his earlier speeches stressed his financial difficulties,76 he now
offers to pay more than his share of the promised contributions; he also hints
at the possibility of asking the Roman governor to enforce the pollicitationes
of those who are not meeting their obligations.77
The negative undertone of the speech reflects not only Dion’s own state
of mind but a deteriorating political climate in Prusa during these years. Un-
derlying tensions unknown to us had been sprung by the controversy sur-
rounding the appointment of the hundred extra councillors. In oration 45,
Dion had expressed his apprehension that the process would lead to division
or factionalism within the city,78 and his fears turned out to be well founded.
Within a few years, the political discourse at Prusa had become so polarised
and violent that the governor suspended the meetings of the ekklêsia. It was
unusual for governors to intervene in a city’s self-government in this way;
it was also a serious blow to the Hellenic self-perception of the Prusans. A
governor would hardly have taken this measure unless conditions in Prusa
had deteriorated to the point where there was a perceived risk of stasis. Fortu-
nately, Prusa was eventually allowed to resume the meetings of the ekklêsia. In
what was apparently the first assembly meeting after the ban had been lifted,
Dion expresses the gratitude of the citizens to the governor, Varenus Rufus,79
and a general sense of elation and optimism. The meeting is described as a
purification rite80 giving the Prusans an opportunity to cleanse themselves
of the past and its civic discord. This of course provides an occasion, which
Dion cannot pass up, for a long digression on concord. If the Prusans will
bury their past differences and strive for homonoia, the future of their city is
bright. The general optimism even extends to the building project, which is
nearly finished and will soon be completed.81
Reconciliation
What was Dion’s position in the conflict that divided the Prusans so violently?
As part of a polemic against his opponents in another matter, he publicly
speculates that “certain people” want him out of the way so that he cannot
again help the common people (ho dêmos) or those who are unjustly accused.82
Given his political record since the time of his exile, it should not surprise
us to find Dion posing as the champion of the dêmos, nor that his opponents
had branded him a “tyrant” (in the classic sense of the word: an ambitious
politician using the masses as an instrument to seize absolute power).83 Dion’s
relations with the bouleutic elite were evidently still strained, and for some
time he absented himself from the meetings of the boulê.84 In a speech given
when he resumed his place in the council, preserved as oration 50, Dion takes
pains to distance himself from his recent democratic views and point out that
he has never been a member of a party (hetaireia).85 A large part of the oration
is given over to an encomium of the boulê, garnished with parallels from the
history of Athens and Sparta. In return, the council proposes to nominate
Dion as one of next year’s archons, an offer he politely refuses.86
Dion has several sound reasons for seeking a rapprochement with the council
at this time. For one thing, his son has won a place on the boulê and the father
does not want his own conflicts to affect the son’s career.87 The colonnade
project, which has infested Dion’s political life for nearly a decade, has been
completed – at least we hear no more of it.88 Thirdly, Dion has found a new
and potentially powerful ally: the governor Varenus Rufus. Perhaps he hopes
that Varenus, taking the imperial rather than the local view, will support his
project for federating the scattered Bithynian cities into larger communities.
Once again, Dion’s political plans go off course. His son dies within a few
years, and his close relationship with Varenus turns into a serious liability.
In the course of his term as governor, Varenus Rufus had alienated numer-
ous members of the provincial elite, and some of these later alleged that they
had been unjustly persecuted by the governor. When his term expired, he
was called to account in a suit de repetundis, but the province withdrew the
charges before the case had been heard (see also p. 86).
In his forty-third oration, Dion defends himself in the Prusan assembly at
a time when accusations have already been brought against Varenus, but the
case has not yet reached a hearing at Rome. The charges brought against Dion
by his adversaries include his “having misled a bad governor” to persecute
the people of Bithynia without cause, forcing some of them into exile and
driving others to suicide; worse, “even now” (nyn) he continues to cooperate
with the governor, who is attempting to gain the upper hand over the cities
and inhabitants (poleis kai dêmous) of the province. Unfortunately, the rest of
the speech, containing Dion’s refutation of the charges, is not preserved.
Dion’s love of hyperbolê as a rhetorical device is matched by his opponents,
and it is difficult to extrapolate the exact accusations brought against Dion
from his long and somewhat generalised list of his opponents’ grievances. Two
charges are clearly stated, however. With good cause or without it, Varenus
sentenced some leading citizens of Bithynia et Pontus to relegation, and some
of those condemned had committed suicide instead of going into exile. Exile
was no unusual punishment; it had been employed by one of Varenus’ pre-
decessors and would once more be imposed by his successor.89 Second, Dion
“even now” (nyn) continues to cooperate with the governor. That Varenus
was “misled” on to this course by Dion may be imputing a too active rôle,90
but Dion was not adverse to the idea of using the governor (or the threat
of intervention by the governor) for his own purposes91 and may well have
agreed with the policies of Varenus in the early phase of his proconsulate.
Whether Dion continued to do so at the time when oration 43 was held, and
whether he felt bound by his former friendship with Varenus, is less clear;92
based on his experience at the fall of Flavius Sabinus, it would be entirely
understandable if he chose to abandon Varenus Rufus rather than risk being
dragged down with him.
Flavius Archippos
No orations have been preserved from Dion’s last years in Prusan politics. He
continued to be active in municipal life and as a builder. This brought him
into conflict with another of the philosophers in Prusa, Flavius Archippos.
Though it had no direct impact on Dion’s political career, the story deserves
retelling for the light that it sheds on informal social relations and the way
in which provincials might instrumentalise the power of Rome for their own
petty purposes.
Among Dion’s many adversaries, Flavius Archippos is one of the few
that can be named, and though he is never mentioned by Dion, a good deal
of his biography is known from the letters of Pliny. Archippos was a con-
temporary of Dion’s or perhaps slightly younger, and like Dion, he was born
a peregrine. In his early years, he was indicted for forgery, found guilty in
the governor’s court and sentenced to hard work in the mines (damnatus in
metallum).93 Archippos either escaped (as his detractors later claimed) or was
released, and through the favour of Domitian obtained not only the Roman
citizenship but a grant enabling him to acquire a farm of his own near Prusa.94
He first appears in the correspondence of Pliny on account of having claimed
exemption, as a philosopher, from jury service; this prompted some citizens
to revive his old conviction for forgery and claim that Archippos had never
served his full prison term. Their spokeswoman was a lady of good family,
Furia Prima,95 who signed her name to a petition directed to the emperor.
Pliny wisely forwarded the whole file, including Furia’s petition and the
copious documentation provided by the ex-forger Archippos, to Trajan for
consideration.96 The emperor instructed Pliny to take no further action in the
matter,97 and Archippos was still at large some time later, when he once more
appears before Pliny, this time in the role of plaintiff.98
Pliny was concluding one of his periodic visits to Prusa99 when one Clau-
dius Eumolpos, acting on behalf of Flavius Archippos, lodged a formal com-
plaint against Dion. At a meeting of the boulê – of which Archippos must thus
have been a member – Dion had asked the city to assume financial responsibil-
ity for a building project (opus). It is not clear whether Dion had undertaken
the construction on behalf of the city or whether this was a private building
project of Dion’s that he now wanted the city to take over.100
Through Eumolpos, Flavius Archippos is laying two charges before the
governor: first, that Dion has refused to open his accounts for inspection by
the city and is suspected of dishonest conduct; second, he has set up a statue
of the emperor in the building although it also contains the tombs of Dion’s
wife and son. On behalf of Archippos, Eumolpos formally requested that the
governor should hold a judicial inquiry (postulavit ut cognoscerem pro tribu-
nali).101
We have no other clues to the nature of the building, identified by Pliny
simply as a work, opus, that Dion wishes to transfer to the city.102 It included a
library and a small court surrounded by colonnades, a description that might
fit a small gymnasium or school (perhaps built to house Dion’s lecture classes)
as well as a sumptous private house. It might even be the ancestral residence,
rebuilt by the now childless Dion to serve as a library and a memento of his
loyalty to the emperor.
The second charge was in theory lethal, but in practice trivial. Placing an
emperor’s image in conjunction with a private burial could be construed as
a serious act of desecration, detrimental to the imperial maiestas. Some previ-
ous emperors had been notorious for the frequency and severity of maiestas
trials, but there had been none since the early years of Trajan’s reign, a fact
of which both Pliny and Dion were well aware.
Perhaps because he thought the question could be settled summarily, Pliny
acceded to the request of Archippos and Eumolpos and offered to hold an in-
quiry at once, but as Eumolpos needed time to prepare his case, it was agreed
to have it at Nikaia (presumably the next stage on the governor’s circuit). At
Nikaia, however, the plaintiffs requested yet another adjournement, while
Dion, as defendant, wanted his case heard. After a great deal of talking on both
sides – etiam de causa, as Pliny sarcastically remarks, “some of it even of rel-
evance to the case” – the governor adjourned the case sine die to consult the em-
peror for advice. As in the previous case concerning Archippos, this required
both sides to submit written petitions that Pliny could forward to Rome.
Dion immediately agreed, but Eumolpos declared that he would confine
himself to the question of the building accounts; for the second charge, he
had merely been acting on the instructions (mandata) of Archippos. Archip-
pos then volunteered to write the second petition himself.
After several days, Pliny had received Dion’s submission but nothing
from the plaintiffs. He sent Dion’s statement to Trajan with a covering letter
in which he describes the building in question. Trajan’s statue is in a library,
while the burials are in a different part of the complex, in a courtyard sur-
rounded by a colonnade.
Trajan’s reply is short and to the point. No action is to be taken on the
maiestas charge, and Dion must open his account books for inspection, “which
he has not refused to do and cannot refuse” (aut recuset … aut debeat recusare).103
This last sentence is our only clue to the contents of Dion’s submission, which
has not been preserved.
From a purely legalistic perspective, the behaviour of the chief characters
may seem inexplicable, but when informal relations and social standing are
included in the equation, their actions are easier to understand.
First, Dion. In an earlier speech he had made an oblique but sarcastic attack
at people who failed to account for a public work.104 On his own statement,
he was not fond of appearing in court;105 unlike Eumolpos, who keeps ask-
ing for adjournments, Dion wants to get the case over with; since he did not
refuse to open his accounts, he presumably had nothing to hide. There is no
plausible reason why Dion should turn down a request for an audit, except
that the request was made by Archippos – a social inferior, a competing phi-
losopher, a protegé of the emperor at whose hands Dion had suffered, and a
convicted forger to boot – in the full public view of the boulê. To accede then
and there involved an intolerable loss of “face”, an acknowledgment that for
the moment, Archippos was one up and Dion was one down. From what we
know of Dion from his municipal speeches, we would not be surprised if he
was provoked, nor that he should assume his familiar pose: “I am a personal
friend of the emperor, touch me if you dare”.
Dion’s refusal was an open challenge to the standing of Archippos,
whose counter-claim (made not in the boulê, but before the governor) is that
this self-stated imperial intimate is in fact an enemy of the emperor, guilty
of maiestas. In the heat of the moment, Flavius Archippos and Claudius
Eumolpos apparently, somewhat naïvely, believed that they might obtain
a conviction on a maiestas charge; given time for closer reflection, their in-
terest soon cooled. Dion, of course, would immediately have seen through
their counter-charge, realising that under the new regime, a maiestas charge
was at best an empty gesture and that with luck, it might even be exploited
to make its originators look ridiculous. Eumolpos (who, unlike Archippos,
may have been a trained lawyer) was the first to withdraw from what he
evidently considered to be a hopeless case and leave it to Archippos, who
likewise failed to follow his charge up with a written submission. Interest-
ingly, the pair also failed to pursue their claim that Dion would not produce
his accounts for inspection.
Which brings us to Pliny. Like Dion, he would be well aware that maiestas
prosecutions were a thing of the past; in his Panegyric to Trajan, held shortly
after the emperor’s accession, he said so himself.106 The question of the build-
ing accounts was more delicate. On the one hand, Pliny was concerned about
urban finances and had a duty to see that building accounts were properly
audited; on the other hand, his attempts to enforce general rules in the case
of the imperial freedman Maximus (see above, p. 64)107 had revealed that he
could not always count on imperial backing where Trajan’s personal friends
were involved. How far should Pliny go in this case – in other words, just
how close an amicus principis was Dion? As we know, Dion was an energetic
name-dropper, reminding his fellow-citizens how he enjoyed the emperor’s
affection (agapê),108 friendship and interest (philanthrôpia kai spoudiê).109 In the
less formal environment of the agora or his lecture-hall, he may have gone
further; after all, the extravagant anecdote of Dion riding in Trajan’s golden
chariot, found in the Lives of the Sophists110 is unlikely to have been invented
by Philostratos; it must come from one of Dion’s pupils, and thus ultimately
be based on a story told by Dion himself.
Unsure what to do, Pliny decides to consult the emperor. He cannot ask
Trajan openly whether Dion, like Maximus, is so close an intimate of the em-
peror that he is de facto above the law; but the charge of maiestas (which by
definition involves the emperor himself) provides a convenient pretext for
consultation on both issues. When the answer arrives, Pliny finds himself
reprimanded (“My dear Pliny…”) for raising the issue of the maiestas charge,
but this is a small price to pay for the clear guidance of Trajan on the other
matter: Dion must produce his accounts for inspection.
Resignation and utopianism

The last years of Dion’s life were not happy. The loss of his son, on whose
career he had evidently set his hopes, must have been a serious blow. His
wife probably also died in the first decade of the second century.111 Dion
had at least one other son or daughter112 but we hear nothing of the others;
probably none of his children survived him. Looking back on the years that
had passed since his return from exile, his finest hour in civic politics had
also been the first, when as leader of the Prusan delegation to Rome, he had
proved himself as the city’s spokesman and friend of the emperor. But his
subsequent participation in municipal life had been plagued by snide after-
the-fact criticism of his embassy and his building project, and the situation
had been aggravated first by Dion’s attempts to pose as a champion of the
dêmos, then by his alliance with Varenus Rufus. As we have seen, he went
out of his way to seek reconciliation with the boulê, not least for the benefit
of his son, but he still had enemies in Prusa – as the Flavius Archippos affair
revealed all too clearly.
The seventh, or Euboian, oration was composed towards the end of Dion’s
political life.113 It was not written for a municipal assembly and does not con-
form to the normal pattern of a political speech, yet in a certain sense it may
be read as the political testament of Dion.
The structure of the Euboian oration is symmetrical, its first half taking the
form of a narrative, the second a philosophical discussion of traditional moral
and political problems: the nature of the good life, urban unemployment,
virtuous and unworthy occupations, etc.114 These general precepts, however,
are of limited interest for a study of Dion’s view of local politics; for that we
must turn to the first part of the speech.
The I-narrator relates how he sailed from Chios towards the Greek main-
land in a small boat but was wrecked on the coast of Euboia. Without any-
one to guide him, he wandered aimlessly along the shore until he met with
a hunter who invited him to share his dinner. En route, the hunter tells the
story of how he and his brother came to settle in the marginal lands of Euboia,
living simply but happily off the fruits of the land, which their families have
planted with grain, vines and olives. The hunter’s brother has never visited
the city, but the hunter has been there twice, once as a boy and again more
recently. The story that he tells the shipwrecked traveller about his visit to
the city115 forms a separate tale within the larger narrative.
The hunter relates how he came to the city and found himself in the ekklêsia,
which was assembled in the city’s theatre. He is intimidated by the aggressive
speeches and the volume of noise in the assembly, and one of the speakers
accuses him of being a parasite, living off public land but paying no taxes
nor performing any public duties. He and his family are free from taxes and
liturgies (ateleis kai aleitourgêtoi), behaving “as though they were benefactors
of the city” (hôsper euergetai tês poleôs).116
While the first speaker is haranguing the poor hunter in this manner,
“another” (allos) man comes forward and argues that tilling waste land is no
crime; in fact, the hunter deserves the praise of his fellow citizens.117 Much
good land is lying untilled, the second speaker points out; in any case, the real
villains are not those who reclaim the bush, but rather those who are plough-
ing the gymnasion and pasturing cattle in the agora, whose sheep are grazing
around the bouleutêrion. When visitors visit the city, the speaker continues,
“they either laugh at it or pity it”.118
The hunter counters the accusations of the first speaker to the best of his
ability, and while he is talking, a third townsman rises from his seat to speak.
He and his neighbour had been shipwrecked on the same shore two years
ago, and saved by the very same hunter and his family who housed and fed
Fig. 29. The theatre of Nikaia. Theatres were often used for ekklêsia meetings, as in Acts and
in the seventh oration of Dion Chrysostomos (Jesper Majbom Madsen).
them, even giving one of them the youngest daughter’s tunic to keep him
warm.119
The hunter is thus revealed to be a benefactor. Prompted by the second
(allos) speaker, the assembly now votes him the free use of his farm without
taxes or duties, and various gifts in addition.120 The tale-within-a-tale comes
to an end and the narrative returns to the main storyline. While listening to
the hunter’s story, Dion has now reached the farm, where he is treated to a
simple, yet sumptuous dinner and introduced to the daughter of the house
and her fiancée. At Dion’s prompting, the wedding takes place two days later
and provides the speaker with the cue for a final encomium on the simple
lifestyle and sincere family relationship of the hunter and his kin, explicitly
contrasted to the empty artificiality, “promises and deceptions, contracts and
agreements” that accompany wedding ceremonies in the city.121
The story possesses many of the hallmarks of fictional narrative: the uto-
pian setting, the blushing young lovers, the stylised characters, the clear divi-
sion into episodes, the coup de théatre in the assembly (taking place, indeed, in
the city’s theatre).122 Some have read it as a description of actual events that
can be located in time (Dion’s exile) and space (the city of Karystos),123 but we
should be wary of accepting this carefully constructed tale-within-a-tale as a
piece of Dionian reportage. It’s not, and it doesn’t even attempt to be; a brief
comparison with the Borysthenic oration, which purports to report a real visit
to a real place (the city of Olbia) reveals important differences.
On the other hand, when setting the stage for his story, constructing a
fictional city complete with inhabitants, Dion would naturally draw on his
own experience of places and people; so Dion’s unnamed Euboian city will
be no further from contemporary reality than Stephen Leacock’s Mariposa
from real-life Orillia.
The city described by the hunter124 could be inspired either by a port vis-
ited by Dion in the course of his travels, or by the city of the Phaiakeans in
the Odyssey,125 which it resembles in having a strong surrounding wall and a
natural harbour. Of conditions inside the walls, the hunter tells us little; it is
from the “second” speaker in the debate that we learn that civic buildings are
in disrepair and the public spaces being farmed or grazed126 (the huntsman,
who has only once before visited a city, of course would not notice this: to
him, cattle and crops were not out of place intra muros).127
This second speaker is the “good” orator who takes it upon himself to
defend the hunter, not for the hunter’s own sake, but on general principles.
In fact, he talks very little about the huntsman but a great deal about the com-
mon interests of the city and how they are best served by allowing the poor
man his plot of land. The same theme – that poor “men willing to work with
their hands” should be given the chance to support their families in respect-
able occupations – is taken up again in the second half of the speech, with a
direct reference back to the story of the hunter.128 There can be no doubt that
the hero of the piece, the loquacious “second” speaker who treats the assembly
to a reasoned philosophical exposition of a policy that will be in everyone’s

best interest, is Dion’s alter ego. It is significant, however, that in the end the
audience is not swayed by the logic and eloquence of the second speaker, but
by the unexpected appearance of the “third” speaker.
The third speaker is introduced only for the purpose of the final dénoue-
ment, and unlike the “second” speaker, whose manner and appearance are
described in positive terms by the huntsman,129 there is no attempt whatever
at characterising the “third”.130
This leaves the “first” speaker. He is hostile to the huntsman from the
moment he sets eyes on him, and his opening speech contains elements that
are immediately recognizable to the reader of Dion’s municipal orations. The
hunter’s paraphrase of the “first” speaker’s aggressive address is closely remi-
niscent of the way in which, in the municipal orations, Dion paraphrases the
arguments of his political antagonists.131 The “first” speaker is characterized
by arrogance, selfishness, lack of self-control and a violent temperament – in
one word, hybris. The extravagance of the “first” speaker’s accusations – for
instance, that the huntsman and his family are wreckers and lure passing
ships to destruction with lights on the shore – again stamp him in our eyes:
a thoroughly nasty character, a specimen of the “traitors and informers (pro-
dotai kai sykophantai) who stop at nothing to harm their fellow citizens” that
according to Dion have infested the Greek cities since the time of Epaminon-
das, if not earlier.132
Two other features of the “first” speaker’s address deserve to be noted.
He is very exact about figures and income – “a thousand plethra of the best
land, from which you could get three Attic choinikes of grain per head”.133 This
attention to petty detail contrasts with the “second” speaker, who discusses
only general principles; and with Dion himself, in whose municipal orations
(save for oration 44, dating to his pre-exilic period) exact figures are rare. (We
are, for instance, never told the total cost of Dion’s colonnade, nor the sum of
the outstanding contributions towards it.) One furthermore notes the “first”
speaker’s remark that the huntsman and his family “live free from taxes and
liturgies as though they were euergetai”.134 The speaker’s implicit assumption
that euergetai are entitled to privileges as well as, or in exchange for, duties
marks a break with the unwritten social contract that underlies the liturgical
system, and with the proud traditions of classical Greece. It combines with
the unseemly interest in financial details to mark the “first” speaker as avari-
cious and out to secure something in return, not unconditionally generous as
a true euergetes should be. Dion’s arrow is not aimed at the bouleutic class as
a whole, but at those who do not live up to the norms and traditions of that
class (as defined by Dion).
If it is accepted that the “second” speaker, overflowing with sound advice
and sophrosynê, is the alter ego of Dion, then the “first” speaker is a personifi-
cation of his adversaries in Prusan political life. This fits well with what we
are told of these adversaries: they belonged to the bouleutic class, they were
hostile towards good people (i.e., Dion), they were selfish and reluctant to
contribute to the public good (i.e., Dion’s building project). The character of
the “first” speaker may be based on one specific person whom Dion remem-
bers as a bête noire of Prusan political life, or it may be a more general attack
at the honoratiores as a class.
In any case, one cannot escape the impresssion that the Euboian oration is
at one and the same time the political testament of Dion and a resigned retro-
spective view of his own life. The scene in the ekklêsia compresses the hopes
and frustrations of Dion’s political career into one short exchange between
the “first” (bad) and the “second” (good) speaker, just as the idyllic image of
the hunter’s nuclear family household no doubt reflects Dion’s longing for the
family life that he himself had once known and his plans that were dashed
by the death of his children.
Notes
1 Dion, Or. 46.3.
2 This unnamed emperor must be Claudius. Dion takes a dim view of Nero and
would hardly boast of his ancestor’s close association with Caligula. Or. 41.6
implies that the grandfather did not receive the Roman franchise until after the
birth of Dion’s mother. The grandfather acquired a “second fortune” bv imperial
bequest; such generosity would be more typical of Claudius than of the notori-
ously parsimonious Tiberius.
3 Or. 41.6: Dion’s grandfather and mother received Roman citizenship from the
emperor, his father through the favour of the Apameians. Or. 44.3: Dion’s father
was honoured by the Prusans; his mother was likewise honoured but addition-
ally received “a statue and a shrine”.
4 Sherwin-White (1966, 676), followed by Moles (1978, 86) and Salmeri (1982, 18
n. 49; 2000, 66‑67 and 89) conclude that Dion’s father was a peregrinus, against
the earlier view of Arnim that he was a Roman citizen. At some point in his life,
however, Pasikrates received the Roman franchise, since this would presumably
be a precondition for Apameian citizenship (Or. 41.6; 10; Raggi 2004).
5 Photios, Bibliothêke 209 (165a)..
6 Attempts to identify the fragmentary inscription IK 39.33 as the epitaph of Dion
or his son are not convincing.
7 Ep. 10.81‑82.
8 Dion, Or. 46.8.
9 Dion, Or. 46.13; 46.9.
10 Dion, Or. 46.5. For loans at very high interest rates, cf., e.g., the rate of 48 % p.a.
charged by Brutus on a loan to the city of Salamis, Cicero Att. 6.1. In Pliny’s time,
the normal rate in Bithynia was 12 % p.a. (Ep. 10.54).
11 Dion had a sister who died c. 105 and at least two brothers.
12 In Or. 46.6, Dion claims to have performed the “greatest liturgies” (megistas lei-
tourgeias), more than any other in the city. Though Dion was fond of hyperbole,
he would hardly expect to get away with such an extravagant claim if it did not
contain some substance of truth, especially as his having performed previous
liturgies is crucial to the success of his later argument (46.14)
13 Or. 46.5‑11.
14 For a useful survey of the available evidence and Stand der Forschung, see Moles
2005, esp. 120‑121.
15 Stini 2006, 301.
16 Or. 13.9‑12.
17 Or. 45.10.
18 Arnim 1898, 319 hypothesizes that, as “nach dem Tode der Bruder kein nähere
Verwandter vorhanden war, der die Vormundschaft über Dios Kinder und die
Verwaltung seines Vermögens übernehmen konnte”, the city had appointed an
administrator of Dion’s property. It is not clear, however, that his children would
need a guardian, and in Or. 47.21 Dion implies that his sister administered part
of his property (or perhaps of their joint inheritance?).
19 The attempt of Jones (1978, 139) to date Or. 44 to c. AD 101 and thus later than
Or. 38‑41 is unconvincing and rejected by Salmeri (1982, 30). According to Jones,
the assizes, larger council, freedom etc. mentioned in 44.11 suggest a date after
Dion’s embassy to Rome; but a) the reference to eleutheria follows naturally from
the mention of Dion’s grandfather in 44.5, b) it would not be typical of Dion to
downplay his own achievements, c) if Or. 44 was given shortly before the pro-
jected departure date of Dion’s embassy, the city would naturally have drawn
up a “wish list” of privileges; this is probably it. Oration 44 ends with Dion’s
reading of a letter from the emperor, and since this reading is mentioned as a
fait accompli in 40.5, Or. 44 must antedate Or. 40.
20 Od. 9.34, quoted at 44.1.
21 Vielmetti (1941, 97) takes the archon mentioned in the closing lines of Or. 48
as a veiled reference to Dion himself; it would, however, be uncharacteristic of
Dion to downplay his achievements in this manner, and even more to describe
himself as apeiros, “inexperienced”. Cuvigny (comm. ad Or. 48, p. 162) assumes
that apeiros merely means “not having held the office before”. Arnim (1898, 390)
more plausiby interprets this somewhat condescending expression as referring
to Dion’s son, but there is no other evidence that Dion junior had reached an
archontate by this time.
22 Cf. Or. 44.6.
23 Robert 1977, 3‑4.
24 Or. 38.42.
25 Or. 38.37.
26 Or. 38.36.
27 Or. 38.38.
28 Or. 39.8.
29 The citizens as a ship’s crew with their leader as captain, cf. Or. 39.6 and 34.16;
the city as a body, cf. Or. 39.5 and 34.22.
30 Or. 39.7‑8.
31 Or. 38.26.
32 Or. 45.2.
33 Or. 45.3.
34 VS 487.
35 C.P. Jones’ assumption (1978, 52) that Dion was “making or renewing” an acquain-
tance with Trajan on the Rhine or Danube border in 99 is pure speculation; the
same applies to the claim that Trajan took Dion with him from Rome to Dacia
“to secure a favourable account of the war in Dio’s history” (1978, 53).
36 Eck 2002 216, 223-224.
37 Cf. Jones 1978, 116‑121.

38 Ziethen 1994, 16‑22.
39 Jones (1978, 52‑53; 138‑139) proposes an alternative and highly complicated
chronology for the early post-exilic period, claiming that Dion made two visits
to Rome within this short period. For a refutation, Sheppard 1984, 160‑161.
40 Two other short speeches (Or. 42 and 51) should probably also be dated to
this period, but provide no additional information on the questions dealt with
here.
41 Or. 40.13‑14, cf. 45.3.
42 Or. 45.15.
43 Dion refers in a general way to the achievements of four important cities: Tarsos,
Smyrna, Ephesos and Antioch on the Orontes (40.11). Antioch and Tarsos are
mentioned again at 47.16‑17, along with Nikomedia, Athens and Sparta, as well
as the colonnades of Rome. The Antiochene colonnade and its urban context are
described in greater detail than the others, so presumably Dion’s project was
meant to emulate the colonnades of Antioch.
44 Or. 45.15‑16.
45 Or. 40.8.
46 Or. 45.8.
47 Or. 40.12.
48 Or. 45.6.
49 Or. 45.15.
50 Or. 40.6‑8.
51 Or. 45.15.
52 Or. 45.9‑10.
53 Cf. Appian’s description of the reaction of the senatorial élite at Rome to the
proposal of M. Livius Drusus to double the number of senators (91 BC), Civil
Wars 1.35.
54 Or. 40.9. Dion’s claim is not entirely unfounded; Pliny, when he visited Prusa,
found several old and dilapidated buildings in the city, cf. Ep. 10.23; 10.70.
55 Or. 40.17. The nature of the conflict is not known; Jones (1978, 91) basing himself
on Or. 40.30 hypothesizes that it may have been a boundary dispute.
56 Or 45.12‑13. This could be Dionian rationalisation after the fact, but finds some
support in the reference in the earlier oration to common festivals and spectacles
(40.29), implying a synoikism. The phrasing of 45.12, relating how Dion wished
to equip “the city” (singular) with “harbours and shipyards” leaves no doubt
that a fusion into one political unit is meant.
57 Or. 40.20. The subject of the motion is not specified but from the context, it must
have been linked with the formal declaration of friendship (philia) with Apameia
(cf. 40.17) after the previous conflict, possibly a motion to ratify the terms reached
by arbitration between the cities.
58 The size of Apameia’s council is not known. As a Roman colony, its councillors
may have numbered one hundred (the usual figure for colonies in the west) –
possibly more, but hardly less.
59 Pliny Ep. 10.47.
60 For a discussion of Dion’s possible family ties to Apameia, see Arnim 1898,
360‑361.
61 Or. 40.30.
62 The reference to Apameia’s interest in Prusan timber may merely have been
thrown in by Dion to impress his Prusan audience. Given the cost relationship
between sea and land transport and the problems of transporting large timbers,
it was probably more attractive for Apameia to obtain her timber by water from
the Marmaran shores than overland from the hinterland of Prusa.
63 Salmeri 1982, 94.
64 Or. 45.13.
65 Or. 45.14.
66 Cf. the hedge at Or. 45.15: “If the opportunity should ever arise…”
67 Politics 1252a24‑1253a17.
68 Or. 47.11.
69 Or. 47.18‑20.
70 Or. 47.2; 5. One notes the contrast – obvious to Dion’s readers, though not to his
listeners – with the opening paragraph of Or. 44 where Dion quotes Homer to
the effect that no place is sweeter than one’s patris.
71 Or. 47.7.
72 Or. 47.9.
73 Or. 47.21.
74 Cf. Anderson 1993, 24‑25.
75 In Or. 12, Dion claims that he takes no pupils (cf. also 35.10), but as Charidemos,
the subject of Or. 30, had clearly been a pupil of Dion, “I do not take” (ou …
lambanô) in Or. 12.13 must mean “at the present time”. Since they are unlikely to
have accompanied Dion on his wanderings and were too young to have known
him in Rome before his exile, we should place Favorinus’ and Polemo’s acquain-
tance with Dion later in the first decade of the new century. Favorinus, a native
of Arelate in southern Gaul, may have met Dion in Rome during the latter’s
embassy to Trajan and joined him in Prusa some time after the date of Or. 12,
which can on internal evidence be dated to the immediate post-exilic period.
76 Most recently Or. 45.11.
77 Or. 47.19.
78 Or. 45.8.
79 Or. 48.1‑2. Vielmetti (1941) read the apologetic mention of an “unexperienced”
archon as a reference to Dion himself, thus assuming that Dion was receiving the
governor as the leading archon of Prusa. It would be unlike Dion, however, to
downplay his own qualifications in this manner, and there is no other evidence
that he ever held an archontate. On another, occasion he refused precisely this
honour; see Or. 49.
80 Or. 48.17.
81 Or. 48.11.
82 Or. 43.7.
83 Or. 47.24‑25.
84 Or. 50.10.
85 Or. 50.3.
86 Or. 49.
87 Or. 50.10.
88 The claim that Dion has “raised [Prusa] to the level of the leading cities” (Or.
43.1) presumably refers to the completion of the building project.
89 Plin. Ep. 10.56.
90 Dion has certainly not functioned as delator, since he makes the point that only
once has he appeared in the courtroom, and then he was speaking for the defense,
43.6‑7.
91 Or. 45.8‑9, 47.19.
92 According to Jones’ reconstruction of events (Jones 1978, 102) Dion “had certain
of his enemies exiled” through his influence with the governor; when Varenus
was summoned for trial, Dion stood by his friend and ally, collecting evidence
in his favour and eventually engineering the “shift of votes in the provincial
council” that led to the abandonment of the case. He further assumes that the
departure to which Dion alludes at 43.8 is a journey to Rome, where he intends
to support Varenus’ case. However, the use of tyrannêsas at 43.11 suggests that
Dion is trying to distance himself from Varenus. Against Jones’ interpretation it
should also be noted that a) Dion is not otherwise known to have taken a part
in politics at the provincial level; would he possess the necessary influence to
have the charges against Varenus dropped? b) there is no indication whatever
in Pliny, Ep. 10.81‑82 that Pliny and Dion were previously acquainted, as they
would certainly be if Dion had been present in Rome during Varenus’ case.
93 Pliny, Ep. 10.58. The governor was Velius Paulus, and the events would have
taken place around or shortly after AD 80. The nature of the punishment indicates
that Archippos at this time was not yet a Roman citizen, contra Sherwin-White
1966, 641.
94 Ep. 10.58.
95 The gens Furia ranked among the oldest and most prestigious patrician clans of
Rome. A number of Furii are attested in Asia Minor, but nothing more is known
of this Furia or her relationship to other members of the family. The assumption
of Sherwin-White (1966, 675) that she belonged to the “côterie” of Dion is pure
speculation.
96 Ep. 10.58‑59.
97 Ep. 10.60.
98 Ep. 10.81.
99 According to Sherwin-White (1966, 639; 675) the events related in Ep. 10.58‑59 and
10.81 took place during the same visit of the governor to Prusa. Pliny, however,
makes no link between the two cases, though their protagonist (Archippos) is the
same person. Further, the question of Archippos’ legal standing would surely
have to be resolved before Pliny could deal with his complaint against Dion? And
while in 10.58 it is clearly stated that Pliny is in Prusa to enroll jurors, in 10.81,
though dealing with a legal problem, he makes no mention of his own judicial
function, merely that he is is Prusa “on public business” (negotiis publicis).
100 Pliny’s phrase curam egerit suggests that Dion had been acting on behalf of the city
throughout, but the following statement that Dion’s wife and son were buried in
the same building (in eodem) points to the private nature of the original project.
Had Dion used public money or property to bury his relatives, Archippos and
Eumolpos would surely have seized on this rather than the far-fetched accusa-
tion of maiestas that was to follow. Perhaps the transfer of the building was in the
nature of a partial gift, Dion receiving a sum of money in return to cover some
of the costs involved.
101 Ep. 10.81.2.
102 Cf. Sherwin-White 1966, 675‑676. Some commentators, e.g. Jones (1978, 114) have
tried to identify the opus of Dion with the colonnade mentioned in Or. 40, 45, 47
and 48, but this is plainly impossible; for one thing, the colonnade was already
nearing completion in the proconsulate of Varenus, for another, the inclusion of
two burials indicates that this second opus was outside the pomerium (most likely
on the suburban property of Dion’s family), whereas the colonnade was intended
to beautify the city centre.
1 03 Ep. 10.82
104 Or. 47.19.
105 Or. 43.7.
106 Pan. 42.1.
107 Ep. 10.27‑28.
108 Or. 45.2
109 Or. 45.3
110 VS 488.
111 It is remarkable that while Dion often discusses relations within the family in a
general sense (cf. Hawley 2000), we never hear about his wife; not even her name
is known.
1 12 Or. 41.6: Apameia is the patris of his children (plural).
113 Or. 7.1: the speaker is presbys, “old”.
114 Since the two halves differ in style as well as content, it appears that the second
half originally formed a separate oration, later re-used by Dion as a sequel to his
Euboian tale.
1 15 Or. 7.22‑63.
116 Or. 7.28.
117 Or. 7.33.
118 Or. 7.38‑39.
119 Or. 7.54‑58.
120 Or. 7.60‑62
121 Or. 7.80.
122 For a discussion of the relationship between genre and reality in Or. 7, see Reuter
1932; Ma 2001; Bertrand 1992.
1 23 Jones 1978, 56; 58; less categorically, Anderson 1993, 70.
124 Or. 7.22.
125 Od. 6.262‑273. The two stories share other features as well, e.g. the shipwrecked
narrator, the confrontation in the council/assembly etc. For other examples of
the Odyssey as inspiration for writers of the Second Sophistic, cf. Anderson 1993,
75‑77; for other literary parallels to the framing narrative of the Euboicus, cf.
Reuter 1932, 13‑15.
1 26 Or. 7.38‑39.
127 Cf. Ma 2001, 109.
128 Or. 7.126.
129 Or. 7.33.
130 Or. 7.53.
131 E.g., Or. 40.8, 47.18.
132 Or. 43.7.
133 Or. 7.29.
134 Or. 7.28.
8. The Bithynian Cities under
the Later Empire
Antonines and Severans

When the tenth book of Pliny’s letters closes shortly after AD 110, so does
our window into the urban life of Roman Bithynia. For the remainder of the
century, our main sources are inscriptions and scattered references in histori-
cal works. The second century has traditionally been associated with peace
and stability and even if today’s historians do not share Gibbon’s unreserved
enthusiasm for the “golden age” of the Antonines, it may well have been a
time of quiet prosperity for the cities of Bithynia. The paucity of references
in the literary sources is in itself an indication that Bithynia was not drawn
into the major political and military conflicts of the time.
With the accession of the philhellene Hadrian, the Greek East received
more imperial attention than it had enjoyed under Hadrian. The chief benefi-
ciary was Athens, but Hadrian also took an active interest in Bithynia, visiting
the region in the aftermath of an earthquake in 120 that caused widespread
destruction in Nikomedia and Nikaia. In both cities, reconstruction took place,
apparently with imperial support (fig. 30). Hadrian’s attention to naval de-
fense and conditions on the Bithynian coast is also attested by the Periplous
of Arrian, compiled shortly after 130 on the basis of an inspection trip to the
ports and bases of the Black Sea.
Little is known of life in Bithynia under the later Antonines, but after the
murder of Commodus on the last day of 192, Bithynia once again found it-
self in the spotlight. Commodus’ successor, Pertinax, ruled for three months
before he was killed by members of the Praetorian guard in Rome. When the
eastern armies learned of Pertinax’ death, the imperial legate of Syria, Pescen-
nius Niger, was proclaimed emperor in Antioch and immediately mustered
his forces for a showdown with Septimius Severus, the imperial candidate
of the Danubian legions.
Most of the cities in the eastern provinces, among them Byzantion and
Nikaia, chose to support Pescennius Niger. Nikomedia, however, sided
with Septimius Severus. It proved a fortunate choice. Niger gained the
upper hand in the early stages of the conflict, but his commander Asellius
Aemilianus was killed in the siege of Kyzikos before the end of the year. In
early 194, Niger himself led his army against the Severan forces among the
hills on the southern shore of Lake Askanios. It was a narrow victory for
Fig. 30. Hadrian’s generosity towards the stricken cities of Bithynia was publicized on this
imperial sesterce from the mint of Rome. The reverse shows the grateful tychê of the city
(with a mural crown) kneeling before the emperor, restitutor Nicomediae. RIC 961 (Leu
Numismatik AG).
the Severans, but Niger succeeded in bringing his defeated forces to safety
within the walls of Nikaia.
Looking back on events from the perspective of a Nikaian but also that
of a loyal servant of the Severan dynasty, the preserved version of Cassius
Dion’s narrative is brief and somewhat circumspect, noting merely that the
battle took place between Kios and Nikaia, and that the troops of Niger found
refuge “in the city”.1 Herodian is more explicit, and his version of events is
worth quoting at length:
When news of Severus’ victory spread, its immediate effect

was to cause an outbreak of civil strife and factional politics
(stasis kai diaphoros) in the cities of all the eastern provinces, not
really because of partisanship for or against one of the warring
emperors so much as jealous inter-city rivalry and because of the
slaughter and destruction of their compatriots. This continual
inter-city struggle and the desire to ruin a rival who seems to
have grown too powerful is a long-standing weakness of the
Greeks and sapped the strength of Greece. But as their organiza-
tion grew feebler and were mutually destructive, they fell victims
to Macedonian domination and Roman enslavement. This same
disease of jealous envy has been transmitted to the cities that
have prospered up to the present day. Straight after the battle of
Kyzikos the city of Nikomedia in Bithynia went over to Severus
and sent envoys to him, welcoming his army and offering their
full co-operation. The people of Nikaia by contrast, because of
their rivalry with Nikomedia, joined the other side by opening
their gates to Niger’s army and taking in any fugitives that came
their way as well as the garrison that Niger sent for Bithynia. The
The Bithynian Cities under the Later Empire 149
two cities were like army camps and provided the bases from
which forces clashed.2
Though scholars are generally sceptic of Herodian’s value as a historical

source, his narrative of the conflict, including its morale, has been accepted
and retold by modern scholars such as Robert (1977), Merkelbach (1987) and
Marek (2003).3 Precisely because of its moral nature, however, it should be
approached with some caution. Herodian is not retelling the story of Nikaia
and Nikomedia merely for its own sake, but to illustrate the nature of the
“Greek malady” and its consequences: their jealousy of other cities leads the
Greeks to stasis and subjection at the hands of others. (Later in his narrative
of the civil war, he quotes the parallel examples of Laodikeia and Antioch,
Tyre and Berytos to illustrate the same point.4) The theme itself – homonoia
versus stasis – is not particularly original, and we have met it more than once
in the orations of Dion.
Herodian himself was a teenager at the time of the battle, and while we
do not know what sources he had at his disposal, they did not include any
first-hand account of the deliberations taking place within the walls of Nikaia.
The historian has reconstructed the motives of the protagonists ex eventu and
in the light of his own historical theory about the all-pervading nature of the
“Greek malady”.
Leaving the moral and theoretical aspects aside and concentrating on the
chronology of events, a somewhat different picture emerges. According to
Herodian’s account, the sequence was as follows. 1. Severus defeats the forces
of Niger at Kyzikos; 2. the news of Severus’ victory leads to conflict and stasis
within “all” the Greek cities; 3. the Nikomedians send ambassadors to Severus;
4. in response, the Nikaians “welcome the army of Niger” which has fled from
Kyzikos and is now being reinforced with fresh troops.
On this chronology, the fatal decision of the Nikaians may not have been
as unanimous, nor as irrational, as Herodian and his modern followers would
have us believe. Since mid-April, there had been three contenders for the
imperial throne (the third, Clodius Albinus, was still in Britain and thus of
no relevance to the situation in Bithynia). The Severan victory at Kyzikos
took place in the second half of 193, possibly as late as December.5 Either the
Bithynian cities had been sitting on the fence for months, without taking sides
in the conflict – which on the face of it seems unlikely – or more probably,
and consistent with Herodian’s narrative, they had sided with the majority
of Asian cities and opted for Pescennius Niger, whose forces controlled most
of Asia Minor at a time when Severus’ army was still only a distant threat.
As Herodian informs us, the Severan victory at Kyzikos disrupted the
complacent attitude “among all the peoples” (i.e. those who had so far sup-
ported Niger).6 They were divided as to what course to take: some advocated
a change of allegiance, others loyalty to Niger. The stakes were high and con-
flicts sometimes erupted into violence and stasis.7
Still according to Herodian, “immediately after (euthys meta) the events of

Kyzikos” the Nikomedians decided to throw in their lot with Severus, “wel-
coming his army” and promising to furnish everything he required.8 Such
demonstrative goodwill towards Severus implies that until this moment, the
Nikomedians had not been among his supporters. At the same time, Niger’s
defeated forces were retreating eastwards from Kyzikos to link up with rein-
forcements sent up “to guard Bithynia.”
In this situation, the Nikaians opted for the side of Pescennius Niger. Their
choice is not difficult to understand, and while the traditional rivalry with
Nikomedia may have played a role, it is irrelevant to any serious analysis of
their motives. The Nikaians, having been on the side of Niger until then, may
have been divided in their counsels (as Herodian tells us that “all” the eastern
cities were); but everyone would now be aware that a battle-hardened army
complete with siege equipment was encamped on the road from Kyzikos,
and that Niger was bringing fresh troops up from the south. In this situation,
defection from Niger’s side would be suicidal. The citizens of Nikaia could
never hope to defend their five-kilometre perimeter – not the massive walls
of the later third century, but the lighter structure erected in the Flavian pe-
riod and repaired under Hadrian – against a trained force of legionaries with
scaling ladders and battering rams. Had the Nikaians not opened their city
to Niger, he would have taken it.
After the final victory, Cassius Dion tells us in general terms that “Severus
rewarded his supporters and punished his opponents” and “exacted four
times the amount that any individuals or peoples had given to Niger”;9 in
that case, Nikaia and its citizens paid dearly for their decision to support
Niger. The erasure of the the historical titles of Nikaia – metropolis, neôkoros,
first city – from the inscription over the eastern gate was presumably part of
Severus’ punishment: though he did not strip Nikaia of its leading status –
that had been lost for more than a century – he humiliated its citizens by
removing the references to Nikaia’s former rank. The names of Trajan and
Hadrian (which the Severan dynasty claimed among its ancestors) as well as
the founding gods, Dionysos and Herakles, were left untouched.
Nikomedia’s imperial century

A few years earlier, Nikaia had issued a coin with the reverse legend basileu
ontos Kommodou ho kosmos eutychei, “under the rule of Commodus the world
is happy”; now it was the turn of Nikomedia to strike an issue announcing
that “under the rule of Severus the world is happy”.10 Since its rebuilding by
Hadrian, the city had been calling itself Hadrianê, and now the epithet Severi-
anê was added in honour of its second benefactor.
In return for its support of Severus at a crucial moment, Nikomedia enjoyed
a positive relationship with the new dynasty, symbolically expressed by the
establishment of additional imperial cults (Severus, later also Elagabal) and
games in honour of the imperial house. Possibly the temple to Commodus,

out of use since 193, was re-used for the cult of Severus.
More surprising at first sight is the generous treatment of Nikaia. Pun-
ished in 194 for its support of Niger, it was soon granted the right to hold
games in honour of the new emperor (Seouêreia) and his sons (Seouêreia
philadelpheia).11 In the reign of Commodus, Nikaia had established games in
honour of the emperor12 – thus Severus, who from 195 onwards claimed to
be the adopted son of Marcus Aurelius and divi Commodi frater, was bound
by the norms of family loyalty to continue the Kommodeia in honour of his
dead “brother”.
Sentimental considerations apart, there were good reasons for the close
relationship between the Nikomedians and the ruling dynasty. Roman em-
perors needed to keep an eye on the situation on the Parthian frontier (and
another eye on the powerful Syrian army, which had provided more than
one pretender for the imperial throne). Where previous emperors had usu-
ally gone by sea to and from the East, the Severans showed a preference for
the overland route through Anatolia, and Nikomedia offered a convenient
staging point and temporary headquarters. In 214/215, Caracalla wintered
in Nikomedia and found the city so congenial that he stayed long enough to
celebrate his birthday (on April 4) before resuming his journey.13 Four years
later, Elagabal spent the winter in Nikomedia, allowing time for the snows to
clear before continuing overland through the Balkans to Rome.14
For a provincial city, the presence of an emperor was a mixed blessing. On
the one hand, it offered the chance to meet the emperor and his chief depu-
ties at close hand, to obtain privileges for the city or imperial appointments
for oneself and one’s relatives. On the other hand, by the unwritten laws of
hospitality, the city was expected to house and feed their visitors. A difficult
and demanding task, especially if the visit was a prolonged one or the em-
peror was travelling with an army.
In such situations, the city naturally looked to its richest citizens to bear the
burden, either alone or jointly. Among the many benefactions performed by
the rich Ephesian sophist Flavius Damianos, one of the most generous was to
feed the army of Lucius Verus “returning from the Parthian victory”.15 Within
Bithynia itself, an inscription records how a wealthy Nikaian, Fl. Severianus
Asklepiodotos, received and “accompanied” Caracalla during the latter’s pas-
sage on the way from Nikomedia to Antioch in April 215; three years later,
he did the same for Elagabal. In return, he received an imperial priesthood
and the right to wear the purple. Caracalla in particular could be a demand-
ing guest, as Cassius Dion writes:
Then there were the provisions that we were required to furnish

in great quantities on all occasions, and this without receiving any
remuneration and sometimes actually at additional cost to our-
selves all of which supplies he either bestowed upon the soldiers
or else peddled out; and there were the gifts which he demanded
from the wealthy citizens and from the various communities …
But apart from all these burdens, we were also compelled to build
at our own expense all sorts of houses for him whenever he set
out from Rome, and costly lodgings in the middle of even the
very shortest journeys; yet he not only never lived in them, but
in some cases was not destined even to see them. Moreover, we
constructed amphitheatres and race-courses wherever he spent
the winter or expected to spend it, all without receiving any con-
tribution from him and they were all promptly demolished, the
sole reason for their being built in the first place being, apparently,
that we might become impoverished.16
Allowing for some exaggeration on the part of Cassius Dion, the description
tallies with the inscription in honour of Flavius Asklepiodotos (fig. 31), who
arranged both gladiatorial games and wild beast hunts during Caracalla’s
visit to Nikaia.17 If supplies were not forthcoming on a voluntary basis, the
emperors might resort to requisitions; Caracalla’s freedman Theocritus was
notorious for his brutality in this respect:
travelling to and fro for the purpose of securing provisions and

then hawking them at retail, and he put many people to death in
connexion with this business as well as for other reasons.18
Cassius Dion, himself a member of the elite, complains that provisions were
furnished “without remuneration”; but for the man in the street, it mattered
little whether the emperor paid for army provisions or not. Even if he did,
the presence of a large army would increase demand for foodstuffs and drive
prices beyond the means of average consumers, as when Julian assembled
his army at Antioch in the latter half of 362. Despite the efforts of the em-
peror to bring supplies from outside at his own expense, the presence of the
army aggravated an already existing grain shortage, leading to price rises
and bread riots in the city.19 In this respect, a port like Nikomedia – which
could be supplied by sea if need arose – was better suited as a staging point
for an army than an inland city like Nikaia, and this may explain its rôle as
a winter base under the Severans and its subsequent rise to the status of an
imperial residence.
Once the facilities for accomodating the emperor and the army had been
established, they could be re-used on later occasions. According to the hostile
account of Cassius Dion, amphitheatres and circuses erected for Caracalla’s
visits “were all promptly demolished”, but this was evidently not always the
case. Nikomedia possessed a large bath complex, later known as the “Antonine
baths”. It was probably here that the sophist Libanios – then at the height of
his popularity – gave lectures in the 340s, for lack of a larger auditorium in
Fig. 31. The biography of Flavius Severianus Asklepiodotos, a rich notable of Nikaia in the
early third century, records how he “accompanied” Caracalla during the latter’s visits to
Nikaia. When Caracalla was murdered and suffered memoria damnata, the emperor’s name
was erased from the inscription. Iznik Museum (author’s photo).
the city;20 shortly afterwards, the baths were destroyed in the earthquake of
358.21 Two hundred years later, Prokopios records Justinian’s restoration of
the Antonine baths in Nikomedia, which “because of their immense size” no
one had expected to see rebuilt.22 A structure of this size, requiring some time
to plan and build, would hardly be erected merely for a winter sojourn. Had
he lived, Caracalla presumably intended to return to Nikomedia and make it
his residence from time to time, and he may have aimed to match the Thermae
Antonini at Rome, begun under his father in 206 and nearing completion by
214. No parts of the Antonine baths remain standing in Nikomedia, but their
Roman homonym gives an idea of the size and grandeur that may have been
intended. As for their location, it was clearly in the lower part of the city,23
probably somewhere between the citadel and the agora.
Of other structures built under the Severans, little is known. We may take
it for granted than Nikomedia had an amphitheatre, at least one theatre and a
circus. If the emperor intended to stay in the city for longer periods, we may
also take it that Nikomedia possessed a palace. From the evidence of coin
images and titles, we know that by the reign of Elabagal, the city was tris
neôkoros, home to no less than three imperial temples (fig. 7).24
For most of the third century, emperors were preoccupied with events
elsewhere and visits to Nikomedia intermittent,25 but with the accession of
Diokletian in 284, the city became a permanent imperial residence. Under the
Tetrarchy, it was one of the four imperial capitals. The continuous presence of
the senior Augustus, the highest-ranking of the four tetrarchs, naturally stimu-
lated urban development which was spurred on by the monumental ambi-
tions of the emperor himself. The rhetor Lactantius, who came to Nikomedia
at the end of the third century and observed events at first hand, describes
the building activities of Diokletian:
In addition, his unlimited desire to build led to requisitions of

artisans, artists, wagons and everything required for a building
project throughout the provinces. Basilicas here, a circus there,
a mint or arms factory; here a house for his wife, there one for
his daughter. A great part of the town was torn down straight
away … Thus he raged without pause in his eagerness to make
Nikomedia the equal of Rome.26
The requisitions and taxes of which Lactantius complains may well have been
resented, but there will have been a more positive side to Diokletian’s activi-
ties: the immense building site created jobs, stimulated the local economy and
attracted immigrants to the region. By the early fourth century, Nikomedia
was the fifth largest city of the Empire.27 There is no doubt that by the end of
Diokletian’s reign, Nikomedia was a magnificent city; both Ammianus and
Libanios, who had known it before its destruction by earthquake in 358, are
vociferous in their laments. It is indeed a sad fact that seismic activity has
obliterated almost every vestige of the city that Diokletian strove to make “the
equal of Rome”. For an impression of Nikomedia in its glory, one must go to
other residences of the Tetrarchs. In the western capital of Trier, the visitor
can still get an impression of the sheer size of a late imperial city, while the
retirement palace of Diokletian at Split gives some idea of the residence he
built in Nikomedia.
Following the abdication of Diokletian in 305, three other emperors made
Nikomedia their residence: Maximinus Daia (305‑313), Licinius (313‑324) and
Constantine the Great (324‑325). In 312, the presbyter Lukianos was brought
to Nikomedia from Antioch to be tried before Maximinus, who had him ex-
ecuted.28 The following year, Maximinus was defeated by Licinius, who en-
tered Nikomedia in triumph and made it the capital of his eastern part of the
empire for more than a decade. Relations between Licinius and his western
colleague Constantine were strained, and in 324, the conflict came to a head;
Licinius was defeated, forced to abdicate and exiled to Thessaloniki.
In the autumn of the same year, Constantine the Great entered Nikome-
dia for the first time. He remained in Nikomedia over the winter, travelled
to Nikaia for the ecumenical council in May-June 325 and returned to Niko-
media to celebrate his vicennalia – a year early – at the end of July. By that
time, however, Constantine had already chosen Byzantion as the site for the
new city that was to bear his name. When the summer drew to a close and
Constantine departed for the west, Nikomedia’s time as an imperial capital
came to an end.
Change and crisis in third century Bithynia

Traditionally, ancient historians have tended to view the third century as a
period of violence and disorder, a distressing contrast to the golden years of
the the adoptive emperors. Recent scholarship has revised this view; not every
change that took place during the third century was a change for the worse,
and some of the period’s long-term problems had their roots in the second
century. Furthermore, individual perceptions of events and trends will have
been very different, depending on where one lived and to what social class
one belonged.
The senatorial class suffered most, as in the course of the century, its tradi-
tional monopoly on leading political and administrative positions was steadily
eroded. The accession of the equestrian Macrinus in 217 revealed that it was
now possible for non-senators to reach the throne; the reforms of Gallienus at
the mid-century excluded senators from military commands, the traditional
way to glory and personal prestige. By the late third century, the senate saw
itself reduced to the governing council of a city that was in theory still the
imperial capital but rarely visited by the emperor.
A basic problem of the empire was the difficulty of raising sufficient funds
to pay the army. Since cutbacks in army pay were politically impossible, few
financial policy options remained open. The simplest and most effective was
to debase the coinage. Coins were called in, melted down and recoined to
a lighter weight standard or with a higher proportion of base metal. In the
short term, this boosted the state’s spending power; in the longer term, it led
to inflation. Inflation meant rising cash prices for primary products, benefit-
ing small farmers and urban landowners with large rural properties, who
found it easier to pay taxes and debts in cash. Conversely, artisans and urban
dwellers relying on the market for their food supplies suffered; so did urban
capital-owners and moneylenders.
The cities were among the losers. Over the centuries, they had built up
funds and endowments to cover specific items of urban expenditure (e.g., the
oil fund of Prusa). Some of this capital will have been invested in land, but
much would be in the form of cash lent out to citizens at interest. As primary
prices rose, the interest no longer sufficed to cover the cost of oil, grain or
other items. As before, cities looked to their richest citizens to contribute or
undertake liturgies; thus archai developed into mixed liturgies, mixed liturgies
into full ones, and the demand for wealthy and civic-spirited citizens grew
at the same time that economic conditions favoured a flight of capital to the
countryside. A further problem was that as the value of the imperial “silver”
coinage declined, so did that of the local bronze coinage, to the point where
the real metal value of the bronze coins was nearly equal to their nominal
value. The local mints, which had been a source of urban revenue for centu-
ries, became uneconomical and were closed down.
The situation was not improved by the absence of effective central lead-
ership. The fall of Macrinus led to the reinstatement of the Severan dynasty,
first under Elagabal, then Alexander, who held the throne until he was mur-
dered in 235. A semblance of stability returned under Valerian and Gallienus
(253‑268) and after the accession of Diokletian in 284, the imperial power re-
asserted itself throughout the empire. By this time, the senate had ceased to
play any role in provincial administration and all territories (including Italy
itself) were governed by imperial appointees. Under the terms of Diokletian’s
reorganisation, the empire was governed by four emperors (the tetrarchs), each
with his own residential city and “imperial” administration. The provinces
were subdivided and grouped under a new administrative unit, the dioikesis
(see below p. 160).
While the emperors of the third century were struggling to pay their
armies, suppress internal rebellions and defend the eastern borders, new
problems appeared on the northern horizon of Bithynia. A group of Germanic
tribes collectively known as Goths had broken up from their homelands in
present-day Poland and moved southwards into the Ukraine and the eastern
Balkans. In 255, Gothic raiders travelled down the eastern shore of the Black
Sea and attacked Trapezunt; the following year, a larger force crossed the
Thracian Bosporos and marched along the Marmaran shore, raiding as they
went along.29 Among the cities that suffered were Chalkedon, Nikomedia,
Nikaia and Prusa, along with Apameia and Kios. Zosimos, writing c. AD 500
but basing himself on the work of earlier historians, relates how the Goths
… took Chalkedon without opposition, and got possession of

an abundance of money, arms, and provisions. From thence
they marched to Nikomedia, a great city, famous for its wealth.
Though, hearing of their approach, its citizens had escaped with
all the possessions they could carry with them, the barbarians
were astonished at the amount of valuables they found there.
[…] They plundered Nikaia, Kios, Apameia, and Prusa in the
same manner. Then they proceeded towards Kyzikos, but the
Rhyndakos was so swollen by the heavy rains that they could
not cross it and had to return the way they came. On their way
back, they set fire to Nikomedia and Nikaia.30
An army led by the senior emperor, Valerian, marched northwards through

Cappadocia to intercept the Gothic raiders. The military resources of the Em-
pire were overstretched and before reaching Bithynia, Valerian turned back
to deal with a Persian attack on the eastern frontier where, four years later,
he was captured. It was the first time that a Roman emperior had fallen into
enemy hands. The shock, combined with lack of confidence in Valerian’s son
and co-emperor Gallienus, led the eastern armies to acclaim Macrianus and
Quietus as emperors. Their rule lasted for slightly over a year. Macrianus
moved westward into the Balkans, where he was defeated by the forces of Gal-
lienus; when the news became known, Quietus took refuge in Syrian Emesa,
where he was killed. By the end of 261, Gallienus had re-established the rule
of his dynasty in Roman Asia Minor. In 268 he was murdered and in 269, his
successor Claudius won a victory over the Goths in the central Balkans and
henceforth styled himself Gothicus maximus. Two years later, Aurelian took
the decision to evacuate Dacia; this created a buffer zone for Gothic expan-
sion and settlement. It was to be over a century before the “Gothic problem”
again became a serious threat.
To judge from the account of Zosimos, the Gothic raiders of the mid-third
century were looking for quick plunder; they had neither the technology
nor the time required to undertake protracted sieges, instead they targeted
undefended or weakly fortified cities whose leading inhabitants, as in the
case of Nikomedia, chose to flee rather than attempt to defend their walls.
In response to the Gothic raids, Bithynian cities were refortified. Some walls
were erected in haste and using whatever came to hand, as in Prusias ad
Hypium, others bear the mark of systematic, large-scale planning, as in
Nikaia, where the 5‑kilometre circuit constructed under the Flavians and
repaired under Hadrian was once more rebuilt, this time on a much more
massive scale (fig. 32).
Fig. 32. Despite later reconstructions and repair work, the still standing third century walls
of Nikaia give a good impression of the defences of a late Roman city (author’s photo).
Fig. 33. The Flavian south gate of Nikaia was reconstructed on the same pattern, though not
to the same scale or quality, as the east and north gates (author’s photo).
The Flavian/Hadrianic perimeter had been designed for ostentation

rather than defense. Its gates were embellished with statues in niches to ei-
ther side of the archway and perhaps over the gate as well.31 As part of the
refortification project, towers were added at the gates. The new walls were
much higher than their predecessors. At the north and east gates, a new
superstructure was added over the gate itself to accommodate a portcullis
that could be lowered through a slot cut through the vault of the arched
gateway and into the side walls of the gate (figs. 15‑17).32 The south and
west gates were rebuilt on the same general model, though not to the same
architectural standard, as the Flavian gates (fig. 33), re-using blocks from
the older gates, and later provided with building inscriptions in honour of
the emperor Claudius Gothicus – who, on this basis, has been credited as
the initiator of the third-century walls.
A coin issue of Gallienus, however, bears a reverse image (fig. 34a) show-
ing the walls of Nikaia with statues in place on either side of the gates. The
provincial coins of Gallienus are notoriously difficult to date, but the ab-
breviated imperial formula on the obverse was used on Nikaian issues from
256 onwards.33 Coins of Valerian,34 Macrianus (fig. 34b) and Quietus35 bear a
reverse image showing the gates without flanking statues, but with a cross-
bar and a vertical hanger in the gateway arch, presumably representing the
lower edge of the raised portcullis.
It appears that as a response to the Gothic threat, the city was refortified
Fig. 34. Left: Nikaian coin of Gallienus (AD 253‑268) showing the new walls of Nikaia, with
large towers flanking the gates. Two statues to the right and left of the archway. Similar to
RGMG 1.3 Nikaia 846 (Numismatik Lanz, Munich). Right: Nikaian coin from the brief
reign of Macrianus (AD 260‑261) showing a similar bird’s eye view of Nikaia. The niches
flanking the gate are now empty and a portcullis is suspended in the arch of the gate. SNG
Aulock 733, similar to RGMG 1.3 Nikaia 867 (Classical Numismatic Group).
from 257 onwards. At first, the walls were raised and towers added. Later,
the north and east gates were modified and fitted with a portcullis each. This
work had been completed before the capture of Valerian by the Persians in
June 260. There was no shortage of funds for the project; as Weiser notes, de-
spite the devastations of 256, Nikaia was able to hold athletic games in 260.36
Work on the south and west gates dragged on, however, since both carried
building inscriptions in honour of Claudius Gothicus (268‑270).
Alone of the four gates, the western or “sea” gate had not been moved
when the walls were extended in the first century AD, and part of the Hel-
lenistic structure may have been standing. The south gate, on the other hand,
had been built as part of the first-century extension. For whatever reason, not
only the west gate but also the south gate were completely rebuilt, though
spoils from the Flavian gate were used to construct the new south gate, which
was fitted with a portcullis similar to that of the east and north gates. We may
take it that the west gate was constructed in a similar manner. Subsequently,
repairs and modifications were required from time to time, to deal with dam-
age due to enemy attacks or earthquakes; they were still taking place as late
as the thirteenth century.37
Reorganisation, Christianity and a new imperial capital

Having seized power in 284, Diokletian undertook a sweeping reform of
the empire’s government structure. Four emperors were to rule jointly over
an empire divided into large units known as dioceses, each of which was
again subdivided into provinces. The number of provinces was more than
doubled, each province being correspondingly smaller. The system of joint
government by four emperors was soon abandoned by the successors who
had been entrusted with maintaining it, but the structure of dioceses and
province remained, and so did the quadripartite division of the empire into
four territorial units, each administered by a “praetorian prefect” appointed
by the emperor, but drawn from the senatorial class. The city remained the
basic unit of administration, and to counter the tendency of urban elites to
shirk their – increasingly onerous – administrative duties, membership of the
boulê was made compulsory and hereditary.
By the time he left Nikomedia in 325, Constantine had already laid plans
for his new imperial capital at Byzantion on the Bosporos, and in May of
330 the new city, Constantinople, was officially dedicated. While Nikome-
dia remained the seat of the vicarius of the dioecesis Pontica as well as the
capital of the much-reduced provincia Bithynia, this was no compensation
for the loss of an imperial residence.38 Over the preceding forty years, the
spending and consumption generated by the emperor, his extensive entou-
rage and ambitious building projects had acted as a powerful stimulus to
economic activity within the city, and many urban projects and tasks that in
other municipalities were paid for by liturgists or out of public funds had
no doubt been financed by the fiscus. Now the city coffers had to provide
for the maintenance of the monumental baths and other public buildings
erected by the third-century emperors.
Of course, the emperor was not far away – Constantinople was an easy
journey from Nikomedia, by sea or by land. But this geographical advantage
was shared with the other cities of Bithynia, not least Nikaia. As mentioned
earlier, two important highways ran from Bithynia into central Anatolia. With
its position near the western end of the northern route, the port of Nikomedia
had provided a convenient landfall for traders, administrators and emperors
coming from Rome. Going to take up his duties as governor, this was the
route taken by Pliny the younger. But from the new capital on the Bosporos,
it was equally convenient to cross the Sea of Marmara to Drepanon (mod.
Altinova, east of Yalova) and go on by road across the hills to Nikaia, then by
the southern route into Anatolia. To facilitate travel on this route, Justinian
later built a new bridge over a seasonal watercourse west of Nikaia (fig. 35).
The town of Drepanon itself prospered thanks to an association with Lukianos,
the martyr of 312, and a somewhat more dubious claim to be the birthplace
of Constantine’s mother, Helena.39
In the fourth century, Nikaia scored further points at the expense of its
rival, hosting the ecumenical council convened by Constantine in 325; then
under Valens and Valentinian once again achieving the rank of honorary
metropolis,40 almost (but not quite) on a par with Nikomedia. It is in itself
symptomatic that the name of Nikaia became a household word across the
Christian world for its association with the “Nicene creed” of 325. Imperial
support for Christianity after 312 shifted the balance of political power and
social influence in the Bithynian cities. The status of the bouleutic elite had
been eroded and a liturgy was no longer an honour to be sought, but a bur-
den to be avoided. The church assumed new euergetic roles for itself, and its
influence in the cities rose to rival that of the secular authorities, or sometimes
exceed it; especially in cases where churchmen managed to combine high
Fig. 35. Prokopios writes that “To the west of [Nikaia] and very close to it … a bridge had
been built by the men of earlier times, which, as time went on, was quite unable to with-
stand the impact of the stream. … But the Emperor Justinian had another bridge built there”
(Buildings, 5.3). Justinian’s bridge is still standing a few kilometres west of Nikaia, though
no longer used by traffic (Jesper Majbom Madsen).
ecclesiastical office with political influence, as Basil of Kaisareia and some of

his contemporaries.
Even if their economic and social basis had changed, life went on in
Bithynia’s cities, and the proximity of the new imperial capital will have
functioned as a cultural stimulus. At the mid-century, Nikomedia was still
an attractive place to live and work; Libanios counted his five years in Niko-
media from 344 to 349 among the happiest of his life41 and in the Monody on
Nikomedia, he describes the magnificent townscape that had been destroyed
in the earthquake of 358. (In addition to his own fond recollections, however,
Libanios’ Monody was clearly inspired by the similar monody on Smyrna by
Aelius Aristides in the mid-second century; thus we should be wary of taking
every detail of Libanios’ description at face value).42
The historian Ammianus Marcellinus graphically described the horrors of
the earthquake of 358 and the great fire that followed; when another quake
struck Nikomedia in 362, he dryly notes that the remainder of the city was
destroyed, reliqua Nicomediae collapsa est.43 From his choice of words it appears
that little reconstruction had taken place; the stimulus to economic activity
created by the imperial court and its incessant building projects was absent
and in its absence, the city was unable to maintain itself economically, let
alone cope with the massive task of rebuilding itself after the earthquake. To
make matters worse, at the mid-fourth century the imperial administration
had taken direct control of urban finances, which in effect meant confiscat-
ing most of the property, revenues, endowments and taxation rights of the
individual cities.44 From their remaining resources, Nikomedia’s shrinking
population could not maintain the architectural legacy of its imperial century,
and fourth-century emperors had other demands on their attention. All am-
bitions of restoring the monuments of Nikomedia were abandoned, and the
great baths were to lie in ruins for the next two centuries.
Notes
1 Cassius Dion 74.4‑6.
2 Herodian 3.2.7‑9, C.R. Whittaker’s translation (Loeb).
3 Robert 1977, 24 (“par haine l’une de l’autre”); Merkelbach 1987 (“Der nachbar-
liche Hass überwog jede vernünftige Überlegung”); Marek 2003, 71 (“kindische
Sticheleien”).
4 Herodian 3.3.3.
5 Harrer 1920, 160
6 Herodian 3.2.7.
7 It was not the first time that political conflict had led to stasis at Nikaia; Dion’s
Or. 39 implies that this was also the case shortly after AD 100.
8 Herodian 3.2.9.
9 Cassius Dion 74.8.
10 Robert 1977, 31.
11 Robert 1977, 30: RGMG 1.3 Nikaia 355‑356; 359‑360.
12 Robert 1977, 21; 32‑35. RGMG 1.3 Nikaia 302; 305‑306; 310; 316.
13 Cassius Dion 77.19; Halfmann 1986, 224.
14 Halfmann 1986, 231.
15 IK 17.3080.
16 Cassius Dion 77.9 (translation Earnest Cary).
17 IK 9.60; see also, p. 103-104.
18 Cassius Dion, 77.21 (translation Earnest Cary).
19 Ammianus 22.12‑14; Matthews 1989, 409‑411.
20 Libanios, Autobiography, 55.
21 Libanios, Or. 61.
22 Prokopios, Buildings 5.2‑3. To impress by the standards of sixth-century
Constantinople, the “Antonine Baths” of Nikomedia was clearly a complex of
some size, its construction requiring advance planning. For this reason alone, the
baths are more likely to be the work of Caracalla than of the teenage emperor
Elagabal who had ascended the throne less than three months previously. From
the great baths at Rome, begun by his father c. 206 and nearing completion by
214, Caracalla would have skilled architects and technicians at his disposal.
23 As Libanios (Autobiography, 55) tells us, the complex included large swimming-
baths requiring a water supply; considering the difficulties of the Nikomedians
with their aqueduct recorded by Pliny a century earlier (Ep. 10.37) they would
not be able to bring a water supply in at a high level. We may take it that the
high-lying parts of the city were supplied by wells or with water carried from
fountains in the lower quarters.
24 For a possible reconstruction of the temple precint of Nikomedia, see Bosch 1935,
217.
25 Weiser (1983, 75‑76) hypothesizes that Valerian may have visited the province
in 256 on the occasion of the Nikaian games, but positive proof is lacking.
26 Lactantius, De mortibus 7. The daughter in question is Galeria Valeria, Augusta
and wife of the emperor Galerius.
27 Libanios, Or. 8; Lichtenstein 1903, 8.
28 Eusebios, HE 8.13.2; 9.6.3
29 Zosimos, HN 1.32‑35; Marek 2003, 94.
30 Zosimos, HN 1.35.
31 Højte 2005, 36‑37
32 As noted by Schneider and Karnapp (1938), the rough character of the stonework
at the north and east gates reveals that the slot for the portcullis is a second-
ary feature, cut when the arch was already in place. It would be interesting to
know how the gates were closed before the portcullis was installed; according to
Herodian (3.2.9), by the late second century the gates of Nikaia could be closed for
defense. The south gate was dismantled and reconstructed in the third century,
with a slot for the portcullis. Presumably the west gate, which is not preserved,
was rebuilt in a manner similar to the south gate.
33 Bosch 1935, 61; Weiser 1983, 81.
34 Weiser 1983, 89 n. 23 and pl. 27, 24‑25.
35 Macrianus (RGMG 1.3 Nikaia 867‑868); Quietus (RGMG 1.3 Nikaia 872‑873), also
see fig. 34b.
36 Weiser 1983, 88.
37 Schneider & Karnapp 1938, 43.
38 Though the new province of Bithynia was much smaller than the pre-Diokletianic
double province of Bithynia et Pontus, this was to some degree compensated by
the refocusing of imperial administration on diocesan and provincial capitals
rather than individual poleis. As argued by J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz (2001, 12;
38‑39) this gave the capital cities a significant competitive advantage over their
neighbours.
39 Chr.Pasch. 527 (Dindorf) for the year AD 327. Two centuries later, Prokopios
recorded how Justinian provided Helenopolis – as Drepanon was now called –
with an improved water supply, a second bath complex, and “churches and
a palace and stoas and lodgings for the magistrates, and in other respects he
gave it the appearance of a prosperous city” (Buildings 5.2; translated by H.B.
Dewing).
40 Foss 1996, 12‑13.
41 Libanios, Autobiography 51‑53.
42 Libanios, Or. 61; for Libanios’ emulation of Aristides, Or. 18, see Anderson 1993,
321.
43 Ammianus, 17.7.1‑8 (earthquake of 358); 22.13.5 (earthquake of 362).
44 Liebeschuetz 2001, 175‑178.
9. Conclusions:
Urban Life and Local Politics
The combination of two important literary sources: the Orations of Dion and
the Letters of Pliny, provide a unique in-depth view of local politics in Prusa.
They also reveal how little we know about local politics and politicians in
general. If we had to reconstruct the biography of Dion from an inscription,
even a fairly detailed one like that in honour of Flavius Severianus Askle-
piodotos (fig. 31) or M. Domitius Paulianus Falco (fig. 21), we would have
known nothing about the informal and personal aspects of his political life –
his conflicts with the Prusan gentry, the negative rumours circulated by his
opponents, the difficulty of enforcing pollicitationes, Dion’s ill-starred alliance
with the governor, or his personal feud with Flavius Archippos. For the many
other Bithynian grandees and politicians whose formal achievements are all
that is known to us, the effects are visible at the formal level, but not their
underlying causes.
What we can do is to combine the insights we have gained from a detailed
study of Dion’s career with what we know of other local politicians to pro-
duce some generalizations and informed guesses about the informal aspect
of Prusan politics. We may also draw on some general social and historical
theories and hold them up against our observations in Roman Bithynia. It may
also be useful to make some diachronic comparisons, for in some respects an-
cient small-town politics were not that different from later periods: in Prusa,
a reader of Hardy or Leacock will find much to remind her of Casterbridge
or Mariposa. This chapter will attempt to identify some possible underlying
factors and motives of Bithynian local politics.
Honour
One of the most influential theories of social behaviour in premodern societies
is the “honour-shame” model elaborated in the early postwar period by schol-
ars who argued that in an agonistic face-to-face environment, social control
is maintained by the constant threat of losing “face” or “honour”; thus the
punishment for transgressing social norms is public and external (“shame”)
rather than private and internal (“guilt”). As an ideal type, “shame society”
was taken to represent an earlier evolutionary stage different from, or in the
more extreme view, antithetical to, western “guilt-society”.1 Some would
place the transition from “shame” to “guilt” culture as early as late Archaic
Greece, others claimed to find remnants of the shame-culture in the twentieth

century – in the Mediterranean world, the Middle East, in Japan.
A key concept in this analysis is philotimia, literally “love of honour”,
which is taken to be a characteristic of rural “Mediterranean” societies. J.G.
Peristiany describes it thus, using the dichotomy between honour and honesty
to illustrate his point:
The punctiliousness of honour must be referred to the code of

an exclusive and agonistic microsociety; that of honesty to an
inclusive, egalitarian macrosociety. Duty, in the first instance, is
to those with whom one shares honour. In the second, the un-
Greek macrosociety, one’s duty is to all fellow citizens, or even
further, to fellow humans.2
The chief attraction of the honour-shame model is its ability to explain a num-
ber of striking features of modern Mediterranean rural society; as a closer
reading of the above quotation reveals, however, this approach leads into
the trap of orientalism, i.e. viewing the world through a dichotomistic prism
dividing “western” and “modern” from “non-western”, where “non-western”
social organization is implicitly assumed to be primitive, pre-rational, even
pre-ethical. (Honesty is “un-Greek”; presumably, dishonesty is “Greek”?).
A further problem is that anthropological studies of contemporary honour-
shame cultures generally focus on rural communities; indeed, many honour-
shame theorists stress the difference in outlook between village and city.3 That
a similar cultural divide existed in the ancient world is clearly brought out
by Pausanias (above, p. 45), Basil of Kaisareia (p. 46-47) and Dion of Prusa
(p. 136-137).
Nonetheless, Peristiany’s distinction between the importance of “hon-
our” and “honesty” is valid for ancient Prusa: it is at the core of the con-
flict between Dion and Archippos over Dion’s building accounts (above, p.
133-135). Dion could easily enough have proven his honesty by submitting
his books for inspection as requested, but in the specific situation, it was
more important for him to demonstrate his honour by refusing to bow to
the request of Archippos.
Giving and receiving

Another approach stresses the reciprocal relationship between the govern-
ing class and the governed, the principle of do ut des, something given and
something received in return. A classic example of this money-for-power
transaction is the liturgy of the classic polis. Its counterpart in the more strati-
fied society of Rome is clientilistic interaction between wealthy patrons and
their followers. Roman patron-client relationships have been described in
numerous studies, e.g. Gelzer (1912) and Scullard (1951). The model has also
Conclusions: Urban Life and Local Politics 167
been applied by anthropologists to some contemporary societies, such as

modern Sicily.
Money plays an important role in patronage, and it was one of the charac-
teristics of the fully developed Republican clientage system that the large cash
outlays required to establish a power base at the commencement of a political
career were often recouped – by fair means or foul – in its later stages.
Though in many respects a provincial city is a small-scale version of the
urbs, the patron-client model as we know it in Rome does not in every respect
offer a convincing interpretation of Bithynian local politics. If political success
depended on generosity and the distribution of largesse in return for political
support, one would expect offices with a potential for liturgistic expenditure –
such as agonothete or gymnasiarch – to figure prominently in the political
cursus. Yet the office of agoranome is the typical entry-level magistracy of a
municipal career. There is no denying that some agoranomoi won popular sup-
port on a large scale by using their personal fortunes to provide grain or other
staples in times of shortage; but with terms of office as short as four months,
it was not every agoranome that could demonstrate euergetism by saving his
city from a food shortage (and the fact that such euergetism is singled out for
mention in the inscriptions indicates that it lay beyond what was normally ex-
pected of an agoranome). Other agoranomoi in the Greek world financed build-
ing or renovation projects in the market place but again, not every office-holder
would find a place to build or embellish a public market building.
On this question, the honour-shame approach, with its emphasis on phi-
lotimia, offers a more convincing interpretation: The agoranomos was a public
figure, present in the town centre on every market day. His tasks included
maintaining order, overseeing prices and settling disputes; these gave him
a chance to demonstrate such virtues as leadership, helpfulness, strictness,
impartiality, and the ability to deal with people; in short, to demonstrate that
he possessed the qualities required of a coming political leader, a future ar-
chon. Pythias, the ambitious agoranome of Hypata (p. 76 above), is keen to
demonstrate that he is at once helpful (to his friend), severe (to unscrupulous
traders), patriotic (concerned for the reputation of his city) and capable of de-
cisive action (inflicting punishment on Lucius’ fish) – an “honourable” man
in every respect. For good measure, his harangue of the fishmonger gives the
bystanders a glimpse of his potential as public speaker.
Two other arguments against a too facile application of the classical patron-
client model are first, the near absence of clientilistic vocabulary from the
works of Dion – even in his very negative picture of life in the Euboian city;
second, that unlike conditions in Rome or at the imperial level, small-town
politics offered few chances of recouping one’s initial investment. It was no-
toriously easy for an imperial governor or army commander to enrich himself
in the provinces, but the career of a Bithynian grandee would rarely take him
outside the borders of his province and there would thus be no third party at
whose expense he could regain what he had spent on his voters.
A caste society?
Another approach to the relation between governing and governed citizens
is offered by Paul Veyne, who sees a more one-sided relationship between
patrons/benefactors and their clients/cities. As a declared non-Marxist, Veyne
rejects the notion that liturgists and euergetai are driven by the prospect of
later gain; their actions are governed by an aristocratic ethos combining the
obligation to be generous with the right to govern. Where the patron-client
model assumes a reciprocal relationship, Veyne’s model sees no overt trade-
off between individuals, yet tacitly assumes that the euergetic class receives
something, enjoys some privileges in return for its generosity; if not, resources
for future gift-giving would soon be exhausted. Likewise, the privileged group
must be closed to outsiders or social climbers, if its privileged character is to
be maintained. In Veyne’s interpretation, the société à ordres was essentially a
caste society, and membership of the elite was hereditary and closed. From
time to time, a succesful parvenu might obtain access to the charmed circle
through the patronage of established elite members or princely favour, but
such chances – to use the metaphor of Veyne – were as unpredictable, and as
rare, as a winning lottery ticket.4
While this may hold true for other periods, it does not give a true picture
of early Imperial Rome, where a significant number of succesful social climb-
ers are recorded. While some owed their rapid advancement to “princely
favour” (Agrippa, Seianus, Flavius Archippos, Dion of Prusa) or a lucky
chance – Veyne’s “lottery ticket” – there were others who worked their way
upwards by stages. From an unpromising start as a deserter from Pompey’s
army, T. Flavius Petro established himself as a debt collector; his son Flavius
Sabinus became a publicanus in Asia and an equestrian, while his grandson –
albeit with some difficulty – won an aedileship and a place in the Senate. This
family history happens to be known to us because the grandson in question
eventually became the emperor Vespasian, but many similar cases will have
gone unrecorded.5
Nor should one forget that the rather optimistic Veynean view of a class
of benefactors motivated by aristocratic ideals is based entirely on sources
produced by this same class for the purpose of self-representation. A use-
ful corrective, not discussed by Veyne, is provided by the accusations of the
aggressive “first” speaker in the Euboian assembly that the hunter and his
family neither pay taxes nor perform liturgies, behaving as though they were
benefactors of the city.6 It seems that the euergetic class of our Euboian city
does get something in return for its euergetism. Whatever the purpose of the
remark – introduced into the narrative to characterize the speaker or pre-
pare the ground for the coup de théatre that is to follow – it presupposes that
it was normal for euergetai to enjoy fiscal privileges, and that this is known
to Dion’s listeners.
A compartmentalized agôn
Friedemann Quass’ concept of a Honoratorenschicht owes much to Veyne7 in
that the Hellenistic roots of the urban elites are taken to be aristocratic and
hereditary, but basing himself on a much wider range of sources, Quass
demonstrates a higher degree of social mobility in the Hellenistic and espe-
cially the Roman period than envisaged by Veyne. Fernoux (2004) takes the
analysis one step further, with a greater sensitivity to divisions within the
urban upper classes.8
These divisions are crucial to understanding the provincial career patterns
studied in chapter 6. Bithynian urban society was stratified into social com-
partments, yet it was not a caste society. It was possible for a social climber
to move from the lower end of his compartment to the higher; from here, the
next generation could attempt to cross the line of social demarcation and start
their ascent through a new compartment. The stepping-stone was often an
advantageous marriage: Flavius Sabinus the equestrian publicanus married the
sister of a senator; Pasikrates the peregrine money-lender of Prusa married
the daughter of a Roman citizen. The social anabasis of the Flavii of Reate is
neatly paralleled, at a slightly lower level, by the Augiani of Prusias ad Hy-
pium: the father-in-law of Augianus was a phylarch, his son-in-law became
an urban councillor and an archon; in the third generation, Augianus junior
entered the equestrian order.9
Given this compartmentalisation of local careers and ambitions, the social
and political agôn could be played out without endangering the stability and
cohesion of the community. The division into levels was more detailed and
more subtle than the formal structure imposed by the census; it was based on
unwritten social codes and thus in the last analysis unenforceable. Ambitious
pattern-breakers like Dion of Prusa might cross invisible boundaries, but were
sure to feel the force of the establishment’s condemnation.
Fernoux sees the subdivision (“hiérarchisation”) of the notables as the result
of three successive patterns of government imposed first by the Bithynian
kings, then by the Republic (74‑27 BC) and finally by the Empire.10 While the
overall priorities implicit in the Lex Pompeia obviously reflected the timocratic
preferences of the late Republic in general and the optimates in particular,11 it is
not clear how the subtle internal divisions within the class of “notables” serve
the interests of one external régime or the other. As these norms furthermore
appear to be self-imposed rather than based on laws enacted by their royal
or Roman masters, unwritten norms are more likely to be an expression of
the notables’ own desire to maintain a social status quo and limit the scope
for political and financial manoeuvres, to avoid attracting the unfavourable
attention of the ruling power if the city’s finances or its political discourse
got out of hand. The negative consequences of both eventualities are well at-
tested in the case of Prusa.12
Even at the inter-urban level, the agôn was held in check. To Dion, to
Herodian and many modern scholars, the incessant rivalry between neigh-
bouring cities is a typically Greek weakness. In our region, the classic ex-
ample is the agôn of Nikaia and Nikomedia, who for centuries struggled over
the title of “first city”, over the imperial cult and after the advent of Chris-
tianity, over the borders of their dioceses. In his thirty-eighth oration, Dion
castigates his fellow-Greeks for their irrational squabbling over empty titles
and meaningless symbols.13 One can only agree with Dion. Yet the positive
side of the picture is that titles and symbols were all that was fought over, a
clear contrast with the mutually destructive inter-city conflicts of an earlier
age described for us in Xenophon’s Hellenika. As a re-reading of Herodian’s
account of the events of 196 reveals, the cities of Roman Bithynia did not
jeopardize the future of their communities or the lives of their citizens for
the sake of urban rivalry; the Nikaians simply had no choice but to remain
with Pescennius Niger, while Nikomedia very sensibly shifted its allegiance
to the victor of Kyzikos.
Status
Status, the individual’s place within the social hierarchy, is defined by the
interplay of a number of factors, among which “honour” or “face” is among
the most important. A claim to status is established, inter alia, by “correct” or
“virtuous” behaviour (e.g., generosity, magnanimity, equanimity); by educa-
tion and paideia (speaking well, knowing one’s classics); by family and mar-
riage connections (respectable descent, successful sons) and by relations of
friendship and clientage with powerful persons (the governor, the emperor).
On the other hand, two factors that play an important role in today’s social
agôn are conspicuously absent.
One is wealth. While there is no doubt that being wealthy was socially
preferable to being poor, wealth as such is rarely singled out for comment
by our sources, apart from the indirect statement that so-and-so belonged to
the bouleutic, the equestrian or the senatorial order. Furthermore, it is never
quantified: a person does not boast that he owns a certain amount of prop-
erty,14 but that he has given this or that amount.
Another is acquaintance with famous persons. In the post-renaissance world,
intimacy with actors, artists, intellectuals and other celebrities has been a mark
of status, sought after by the wealthy and powerful. In the Roman world,
the social standing of performers was low and the friendship of an actor or
gladiator was not sought for its status value. Association with intellectuals
was a different matter. Numerous Roman aristocrats or emperors posed as
friends or – more often – patrons of writers or philosophers, but perhaps the
value of the relationship was primarily as evidence of their paideia or their
generosity.15
In the opposite direction, familiarity with the emperor was an important
status indicator and a tool in the hands of ambitious career-builders. The
importance of “closeness to the monarch” – Königsnähe – is a familiar phe-

nomenon in the Carolingian world,16 in absolutist Europe as well as in some
not-so-absolute monarchies, such as England. Familiarity with the ruling
house might bring wealth and social advancement (as it did for Dion, for
Dion’s grandfather and for Flavius Archippos, to take just three examples).
In a conflict situation, having – or claiming – the friendship of the emperor
could be a decisive factor, as we saw in the case of Pliny and the freedman
procurator Maximus. Intimacy or acquaintance with the ruler could be used
to bolster one’s position in the local community (as in the case of Dion); even
an ephemeral acquaintance with an emperor passing through a village gave
a special status to the person who was chosen to papapompein the imperial
visitor.
The koinon
The role of the koinon in this connection is not clear from our sources, but it
may have been more significant than scholars have tended to assume. Dein-
inger (1965) and others have focused on the political functions of the koina,
but its social aspects deserve to be more thoroughly explored.
For instance, from the evidence of Bithynian careers, it would appear that
the koinon provided an alternative avenue allowing members of the equestrian
order to bypass the traditional urban liturgies and move directly into politics
at the regional level.
According to the dominant scholarly tradition (Brunt 1961, Deininger 1965,
Ameling in IK 27) province, koinon and imperial cult all formed part of one
system of interaction between province and emperor. The provincial gover-
nor ruled on behalf of the emperor; his actions were checked by the threat of
repetundae proceedings, which were instituted by the koinon, and the leader(s)
of the koinon also served as priests of the imperial cult.
This study has shown that in Bithynia, there is precious little evidence for
a direct link between the koinon and repetundae proceedings, while Friesen
(1999a-b) has demonstrated that “koinarch” and archiereus are not synony-
mous but indicate two different persons; indeed, different functions. While
Bithyniarchs typically have extensive administrative and political experience
(either from a long urban cursus including the three A’s or from serving as
imperial logistês of a city) it is rare for an archiereus to come to the job with an
extensive cursus behind him.
Instead of a one-track interaction between province and emperor, we
should perhaps see governor, koinon, koinarchate and imperial cult as parallel
institutions only loosely connected and coordinated – for instance, governor’s
provinces and koina are not geographically contiguous. The province and
the governor were imperial instruments of top-down administration. Koina
and their associated cult served different purposes, creating and maintain-
ing reciprocal goodwill between the provincial élite and the emperor, and
their geographical organisation reflects the traditional spatial structure of

elite power – in Asia, the four leading cities; in Bithynia et Pontus, the pre-
Roman kingdoms – rather than the structure of provincial administration.
The functions of the archiereus were religious and ceremonial in nature, but
the position of Bithyniarch in addition required both administrative experi-
ence and a certain social standing. The task of the archiereus was to maintain
a symbolic link between the provincial populace and the emperor in his func-
tion as head of state and pater patriae; we may imagine that the Bithyniarch
served to maintain a direct liaison between the provincial equestrian elite
and the emperor in his function as supreme administrator, bypassing the
provincial governor. As late as the reign of Alexander Severus, the Bithynian
koinon corresponded directly with the emperor about the repressive practices
of the local governor.17
Mutual recognition
The Hegelian concept of “recognition” has recently been taken up by social
philosophers who see it as a key to the interpretation of relations at the in-
terpersonal level (Axel Honneth) as well as the political level (Francis Fuku
yama). Honneth views the social agôn as a “struggle for recognition” (Kampf
um Anerkennung); the pursuit of immaterial (“honour”) as well as material
(wealth) status markers is a symptom of this desire to be “recognized” – that
is, recognized by another person. While wealth, paideia and correct behaviour
can exist in a social vacuum, recognition cannot; like clientage, it is a reciprocal
relationship requiring two persons and to be valid, recognition must be offered
freely and willingly by the “other” whom we ourselves would recognize.
Indeed, much of Dion’s post-exilic career can be described as a Kampf um
Anerkennung. In Or. 44, the recently returned Dion stressed that being a local
politician is as important as being a philosopher, but the unenthusiastic re-
sponse of the Prusan bouleutic class led to a hostile rejection on Dion’s part,
a reaction familiar to any observer of human psychology (and to any reader
of Aesop). Posing as a friend of the dêmos was not a sufficient substitute, and
his attempt to win the attention of the governor proved disastrous. In orations
49‑50, Dion attempts to return to his original position – perhaps more tacti-
cally than heartfelt – and win the acceptance of the bouleutic class. Finally,
in Or. 7, looking back with the clarity that comes of hindsight and reflection,
Dion concludes that recognition within the family is more important than
status within the city.
The reciprocal character of the Kampf um Anerkennung comes out equally
clearly in the rivalry between Nikomedia and Nikaia. Both are prosperous
towns, both enjoy status in the eyes of outsiders, yet that is not enough; their
continuous emulation of each other in titles and coinage reveals that what is
important is not status in the eyes of the world at large, but in the eyes of each
other. “First” is an empty title, asks Dion, why is it so important to the Niko-
medians that others do not share it? The answer is that only by renouncing
the title would the Nikaians recognize that Nikomedia was the “first” city.
The applicability of recognition theory to the study of ancient urban life has
some interesting implications for our view of the ancient world in general. In
so far as he focuses on the individual’s desire for acceptance and status in the
eyes of others, Honneth is not far from the honour-shame theorists. A decisive
difference between recognition theory and honour-shame theory, however,
is the place they claim for themselves in the evolutionary scheme: whereas
Dodds and Peristiany interpreted the emphasis on “honour” as a remnant of
a primitive stage of social evolution predating the “guilt-society”, Honneth
and Fukuyama see the “struggle for recognition” (Kampf um Anerkennung) as
a characteristic of modern society. Perhaps ancient local politics were, after all,
not that different from today’s?
Politics and the polis

It is characteristic of many modern democracies that at their lower levels, the
“political” and ideological aspects play a lesser role in the decision-making
process, while pragmatic considerations and personal relations play a pro-
portionately greater rôle. Parties that would not be able to form a coalition
at the national level may form alliances in the city or county council; parties
with a strong ideological commitment will seek pragmatic solutions to the
problems encountered at the regional or municipal level. The perceived ability
or popularity of a mayoral candidate may take precedence over class interest
and ideological orientation. The limited competences and resources of local
councils also sets limits to innovative or revolutionary policies.
How “political” were the urban politics of Prusa? Salmeri argues first,
that class interests were a constant fact of political life in ancient cities, sec-
ondly, that class conflict took the form of clashes between the boulê (repre-
senting the interests of the propertied élite) and the ekklêsia (representing the
have-nots), and that stasis and riot should be seen not as “gratuitous events
but … rather as a virtual continuation and transformation of the ordinary
political strife”.18
While few would wish to question the first premise of Salmeri, his second
point is open to debate. Certainly there were class interests in ancient urban
society, which found expression both within the political system and some-
times transgressed its boundaries, erupting into antagonistic civil violence.
But it does not follow that the two institutions, council and assembly, represent
the two classes. Rather it would seem that as long as the conflict kept within
the bounds of ordinary political life, the boulê and the ekklêsia both served as
its venue, while the opposing interest were represented by factions (hetaireiai)
within the group of councillors or citizens.19
The basic ideological divide in the ancient Greek world was between
“oligarchs” and “democrats”. In the classical period, when the poleis could
still pursue independent military and foreign policies, the dominance of one
party or the other was often correlated with a preference for Sparta or Ath-
ens, and a shift of power at the urban level might lead to a reorientation of
foreign policy or changes in the city’s constitution, sometimes with disas-
trous results. By the Roman period, poleis could no longer wage war or enter
military alliances, nor change their constitutions without the approval of the
Roman governor, but the oligarchic-democratic divide remained, and forms
the background to several of Dion’s speeches. Thanks to the census, the boulê
would be dominated by the larger property-owners and presumably be more
sympathetic to oligarchic viewpoints than the ekklêsia.20
Salmeri points to the period of civil strife at Prusa in the early second
century leading to the temporary ban on assembly meetings (above, p. 131)
as an example of violent conflict between the two opposing class interests,
represented by boulê and ekklêsia.21 The governor’s decision to suspend the ek-
klêsia, however, argues against the notion that these two bodies represented
opposing sides in a class conflict. If the governor wished to be perceived as
an impartial outsider reestablishing homonoia between the opposing parties,
he would not impose sanctions against only one of them. A more convincing
motive for the governor’s decision is that the conflicts within the ekklêsia had
reached a point where suspension was the only way to reimpose order. Simi-
larly, in Dion’s seventh oration, the fictional conflict is played out between
the opposing parties within the ekklêsia.
This contains some of the most “political” urban speeches in Dion’s pre-
served oeuvre, dealing as they do with the application of general principles
to a specific situation; but they are of course fictional. The speeches that were
actually held are less ideological in content, though Dion sometimes invokes
the oligarchic-democratic dichotomy (posing variously as the champion of
the dêmos or a member of the bouleutic oligarchy) he more often appeals to
basic values such as moderation, stability and above all homonoia.
Nor did political events at the imperial level seem to have left a strong
mark on Prusan life. In September 96, the emperor Domitian was murdered
and replaced by the elderly senator Nerva; at Nerva’s death in early 98, the
purple passed to Trajan. Not everyone was pleased with Domitian’s down-
fall, nor with Nerva’s choice of Trajan as his successor, and the period was
marked by plots and counterplots at Rome, bitter rivalries and the settling of
old scores.22 Surprisingly, these are not reflected in our picture of life in Prusa
under Trajan’s reign. The Prusan philosopher Flavius Archippos had been a
protégé of Domitian, his colleague Dion was s self-professed friend of Nerva
and Trajan; but there is no evidence that one belonged to a “Domitianic”,
the other to a “Trajanic” faction, nor that Archippos’ Domitianic connection
was held against him by Pliny, or used against him by Dion. In Prusa, as
no doubt in hundreds of other small towns across the Roman empire (and
in countless small towns of today), local politics were made by local politi-
cians whose actions and decisions were more often dictated by personal and
parochial pride, social ambition and bonds of loyalty and marriage than by
abstract political ideas.
Notes
1 Dodds 1951, 28‑30; Peristiany 1966; for a more moderate interpretation, Pitt-Rivers
1966.
2 Peristiany 1966, 189‑190.
3 Cf. Peristiany’s description of an expatriate’s return to his Cypriot village: 1966,
178.
4 Veyne 1973, 314.
5 Suetonius, Vesp. 1‑2.
6 Or. 7.28.
7 Quass 1993, 14‑15.
8 Fernoux 2004, 19.
9 IK 27.6; Fernoux 2004, 434; cf. above, p. 103.
10 Fernoux 2004, 19.
11 Fernoux 2004, 129‑146.
12 Pliny, Ep. 10.17a; Dion, Or. 48.1.
13 Dion, Or. 38.38.
14 When Dion gives us the size of his father’s nominal fortune (Or. 46.5) he is not
boasting, but deprecating its size.
15 For a discussion of this unequal relationship, see Konstan 1997, 137‑145.
16 McKitterick 2001, 34‑35.
17 Dig. 49.1.25.
18 Salmeri 2000, 74.
19 Dion, Or. 45.7‑10.
20 Cf. Or. 51.
21 Salmeri 2000, 73‑75.
22 Eck 2002, 223‑225.
Appendix
The Dates of Dion’s Municipal Orations1
Or. no. Held in Themes Dating evidence

46 Prusa Famine in Prusa, attempt Pasikrates has recently
to burn down Dion’s died, Dion has a small
house child: early, pre-exilic
442 Prusa Dion’s return to Prusa. Post-exilic, letter must be
Honours voted him by the from Nerva (96‑98). Ora-
city. A letter from the em- tion probably held in sum-
peror. A journey to Rome mer of 97, departure for
is planned. Rome was later postponed
due to Dion’s illness.
383 Nikomedia Homonoia with Nikaia.
Homonoia is natural and
advantageous.
39 Nikaia Internal homonoia. Thematically related to no.
Homonoia is natural and 38; Dion is ill.
advantageous.
42 Prusa Opening section of a lon-
ger oration.
51 Prusa Accuses previous speaker
of insincerity.
40 Prusa In defense of Dion’s build- Dion has returned from
ing project. Reply to his his embassy, Trajan is em-
critics concerning the emperor (98‑117), Dion has
bassy to Rome. Homonoia “held many speeches in
with Apameia. this place”. Building work
has commenced.
41 Apameia Homonoia with Prusa. Thematically related to no.
40, but presumably later.
45 Prusa Attack on Dion’s critics, Nerva is dead, the results

defense of building project. of Dion’s embassy have
Election of new council- been implemented, the
lors. building project is under-
way. Dion’s plans for a
closer union with Apameia
(Or. 40‑41) are referred to
in the past tense.
47 Prusa A philosopher is not re- Building project is partially
spected in his hometown. completed, but sponsors
Detailed defense of the are unwilling to pay their
building project and reply part.
to accusations of sacrilege
and tyranny.
48 Prusa Reopening of the ekklêsia. Thanks offered to Varenus
Financing the building (procos. 105‑106). Building
project. The importance of project nearly completed.
homonoia. Election of ago-
ranomes.
504 Prusa, Eulogy of the council, enu- Dion’s son is alive and po-
Council meration of Dion’s past litically active.
deeds
49 Prusa, Refusal of an archontate.
Council
43 Prusa Reply to charges of athe- Repetundae suit against
ism, populism and col- Varenus is in preparation:
laboration with a wicked 106‑107. Dion has “raised
governor. the city”, presumably
meaning that his building
project is now completed.
7 unknown Idyllic depiction of life in The speaker is presbys. The
the country, where money critical view of urban poli-
and politics play no part, tics may reflect Dion’s own
compared to the strife and experience.
articifiality of urban life
Notes
1 Except for Or. 7, 44 and 49, the sequence follows that of Jones (1978). For an
overview of the various chronological sequences proposed for Dion’s orations,
see Cuvigny’s translation of Dion, Introduction, p. 12 n. 1.
2 Jones (1978, 139) is alone in placing this speech after Dion’s return from his
embassy to Trajan.
Appendix The Dates of Dion’s Municipal Orations 179
3 The chronological relationship of Or. 38‑39 cannot be extrapolated from their

text; 39 might conceivably be earlier than 38. As both Photios (nos. 21‑22) and
the Corpus (nos. 38‑39) place the Nikomedian oration before the Nikaian, most
commentators have likewise been content to assume that 38 is earlier. Cuvigny
follows Sheppard (1984, 165‑166) in placing no. 38 before Dion’s exile, broadly
contemporaneous with no. 46, with which it shares some stylistic characteristics.
As far as the content is concerned – the corruption of Roman governors, the van-
ity of official titles (“even if you abandon all your titles, you abandon nothing
real”) – no. 38 is far more likely to be a product of Dion’s experiences at Rome
and in exile than the work of a young man intent on making a name for himself
in the imperial capital.
4 In the chronology of Sheppard (1984, 167; 172‑173) Or. 49‑50 is placed immediately
after Or. 47 and 45. Sheppard assumes that Dion served as archon during the
proconsulate of Varenus Rufus; thus his refusal of an archontate in Or. 49 must
be earlier. The theory of Dion’s archontate rests, however, entirely on Vielmetti’s
subtle reading of Or. 48 (Vielmetti 1941, 97).
Abbreviations
AJPh American Journal of Philology

AthM Mitteilungen des Deutschen ärchäologischen Instituts, Athenische
Abteilung
BAR British Archaeological Reports
CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
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Geographical Index
Achaia 65‑66, 125 Chios 136

Actium 21 Cilicia 63, 95 n. 198, 114
Aegean Sea 67, 85 Cologne 124
Africa 88 n. 27 Comum (mod. Como) 45, 67
Alexandria (Egypt) 94 n. 187 Constantinople 18, 34, 51, 53, 160, 162
Alexandria Troas (mod. Dalyanköy) 90 n. 22
n. 83 Corinth 74
Amaseia (mod Amasya) 33 Crete 87
Amastris (mod. Amasra) 84 Cyprus 40, 88 n. 27
Ankyra (mod. Ankara) 33, 78 Cyrenaica 86
Antioch (mod. Antakya) 93 n. 149, 142 Dacia 141 n. 35, 157
n. 43, 147, 149, 151‑152 Dalmatia 114
Apameia (mod. Mudanya) 80, 83, 88 Danube 141 n. 35, 147
n. 28, 98, 109, 127‑128, 130, 142 nn. Delphi 47, 74, 121‑122
57‑58; 60, 143 n. 62, 145 n. 112, 156, Drepanon (nr. mod. Yalova) 160, 163
177 n. 39
Apameia in Syria 101‑102 Egypt 17, 65
Aquitania 88 n. 27 Emesa (mod. Homs) 157
Armenia 22 Ephesos 69, 72, 78, 82, 84, 97, 109, 131
Asia 17, 27, 78, 82‑85, 94 n. 185, 97, 109, Euboia 136
115 n. 19 Gallia Cisalpina 62
Askanios, Lake 33, 106, 147 Gaul 98
Astakos 26, 28 n. 1 Greece 13, 91 n. 97, 148
Athens 68‑69, 74‑75, 81, 93 n. 140, Halikarnassos (mod. Bodrum) 75
131‑132, 142 n. 43, 174 Helenopolis (Drepanon) 163 n. 39
Baetica 19 Hellespont 26, 73
Basilinopolis 15 Hypata 76, 167
Berytos (mod. Beirut) 149 Italy 34
Black Sea 23‑24, 37, 75, 156 Izmit, see Nikomedia
Boiotia 45 Izmit, Gulf of 23, 33
Borysthenes (Olbia) 59 n. 29, 75, 138 Iznik, see Nikaia
Bosporos 26, 51, 156, 160 Kaisareia (mod. Kayseri) 34, 46, 87 n.
Britain 149 16
Bulgaria 89 n. 42 Karystos 138
Byzantion 18, 147, 154, 160, see also Kayacık 101
Constantinople Keramet 106
Cappadocia 27, 45‑46, 92 n. 129, 156 Kios (Prusias ad Mare, mod. Gemlik)
Carthage 22 33, 42, 78, 105‑106, 116 n. 39, 128,
Çekirge 25 130, 148, 156
Chalkedon (mod. Kadiköy) 15, 33, 51, Klaudioupolis (mod. Mut) 80, 93 n. 147,
77, 156 94 n. 183, 100‑101
198 Indices
Konuralp, see Prusias ad Hypium Pompeii 16

Kourion 40 Pompeiopolis 33
Kyzikos (mod. Balkiz) 28, 92 n. 140, Pontos 27‑28, 32, 85, 94 n. 181
147‑149, 156 Pozanti, see Podandus
Laodikeia 149 Prusa 15, 17‑19, 21‑26, 31‑33, 37, 39,
Laurentum 45 51‑53, 66‑67, 70‑72, 75, 81, 84, 89 n.
Lesbos 85, 94 n. 171 45, 90 nn. 74; 86, 91 nn. 89; 106; 108,
Lycia-Pamphylia 114 92 nn. 134; 139, 99, 102‑106, 109,
Macedonia 26 115 n. 37, 119‑122, 124‑128, 130‑131,
Marmara, Sea of 24, 143 n. 62, 156 133‑134, 143 nn. 62; 75; 79; 88,155‑156,
Massagetes 46 156, 165, 172, 174, 177‑178
Miletos (mod. Balat) 21 Prusias ad Hypium (mod. Konuralp)
Mysia 28 40, 51, 73, 78, 80, 85, 89 n. 44, 91 nn.
Nemea 74 91; 95; 106, 92 nn. 116; 130, 93 n. 147,
Nikaia (mod. Iznik) 15, 18‑19, 21‑24, 26, 94 n. 183, 99, 101‑103, 105, 107‑108,
31‑33, 42, 43 n. 5, 47, 49, 51, 53‑55, 57 157, 169
n. 12, 58 nn. 14; 22, 59 nn. 30; 35; 41, Prusias ad Mare 33, 42; see also Kios
66, 68, 71‑73, 75, 78, 81‑86, 87 n. 23, Reate (mod. Rieti) 169
90 nn. 73; 80, 91 nn. 89; 91; 99; 106; Rhine 141 n. 35
108, 92 n. 139, 93 n. 158, 99, 103‑104, Rhodes 26
109‑114, 115 n. 4, 116 n. 39, 117 nn. Rome 17, 26, 34, 37, 62, 68, 77, 79, 81, 91
70; 73, 122‑125, 128, 147‑153, 156‑161, n. 97, 95 n. 198, 108, 120‑122, 124‑126,
162 n. 7, 172‑173, 177 132, 141 n. 35, 142 nn. 43; 53, 144 n.
Nikomedia (mod. Izmit) 15, 18‑19, 21, 92, 147, 162 n. 22
23‑28, 29 nn. 22; 24, 31‑34, 42, 43 n. Salona, see Split
5, 47, 50‑52, 57 n. 12, 58 n. 14, 66, 68, Sardinia 66, 88 n. 32
72, 75, 81‑83, 86, 87 n. 23, 90 nn. 69; Scythia 46
72, 91 n. 89, 92 n. 139, 94 n. 183, 99, Sicily 62
101, 104‑106, 108‑110, 112, 115 nn. Sinope (mod. Sinop) 32
34; 36, 117 n. 70, 122‑123, 128, 142 n. Smyrna (mod. Izmir) 15, 17, 125, 131,
43, 147‑154, 156‑157, 160‑161, 162 n. 142 n. 43
22, 172‑173, 177 Spain 102, 115 n. 13
Olbia (Borysthenes) 59 n. 29, 75, 138 Sparta 15, 132, 142 n. 43, 174
Olympia 74 Split 31, 154
Olympos 24, 53 Stageira 130
Orillia 138 Syria 57 n. 11, 65, 101‑102, 147
Oxyrhynchus (mod. el-Bahnasa, Egypt) Tarsos 95 n. 198, 124, 142 n. 43
17 Tegea 91 n. 110
Pannonia Superior 114 Thessaloniki 154
Panopeus 45, 57 n. 1 Thessaly 76
Paphlagonia 27, 64 Thrace 97‑98
Parion (mod. Kemer) 73 Tralleis 85, 91 nn. 109; 111
Parthicopolis 89 n. 42 Trapezunt (mod. Trabzon) 156
Pergamon (mod. Bergama) 26‑27, 82, Trier 31, 154
85 Troy 21
Piraeus 75 Tyre 149
Podandus (mod. Pozanti) 46 Ukraine 156
Poland 156
Index of Persons
Adak, M. 59 n. 35 Augustus (Octavian) 65, 82, 86, 105,

Aelius Aurelianus Theodotus, T. 47 122
Aelius Thimotheos, P. 155 n. 36 Aurelius Alexander, M. 84
Aelius Lamia, L. 114 n. 2 Aurelius Asklepiodotianos Asklepiades,
Aurelius Vernicianus 101‑102, 102 M. 115 n. 33
fig. 18 Aurelius Augianus Philetianus, M. 101,
Aesop 172 103
Aesquilinus 116 n. 38 Aurelius Marcianus 78, 106, 116 n 39
Agrippa, M. Vipsanius 168 Aurelius Mindius Matidianus Pollio,
Alexander Severus 114, 156, 172 M. 58 n. 22, 72, 84, 109, 116 nn. 54,
Alexander the Great 21 60‑61, 120
Ameling, W. 44 n. 27, 83, 86, 87 n. 6, Aurelius Philippianus Iason, M. 92 n.
88 n. 35, 89 nn. 44; 46, 92 n. 116, 93 116
nn. 143; 146, 94 nn. 184; 190, 116 nn. Aurelius Spoudasis Nikeeus 81
50‑51 Badian, E. 87 n. 10
Ammianus Marcellinus 34, 154, 161 Bagnall, R. 87 n. 3, 94 nn. 186‑187; 188
Anastasios, bishop of Nikaia 15 Balbus, L. Mindius 57 n. 11
Anderson, G. 143 nn. 74; 125, 163 n. 42 Basil the Great, bishop of Kaisareia
Antigonos Monophtalmos 21 34‑35, 46‑47, 51, 87 n. 16, 161, 166
Antinoos 100 Bassus, Julius 86, 95 n. 194
Antiochos III 22 Bertrand, J.-M. 145 n. 122
Antoninus Pius 29 n. 24, 57 n. 6, 66 Bosch, C. 42, 57 n. 11, 58 n. 15, 87 n. 23,
Antoninus, Ulpius Titius Aelianus 105 163 n. 24
Apollon 121 Bost-Pouderon, C. 38, 95 n. 198
Appian 33, 142 n. 53 Bowman, A.K. 19
Apuleius 75‑77 Bradbury, S. 43 n. 5
Aristides, Aelius 29 n. 22, 79, 115 n. 19, Braund, D. 92 n. 128
161, 163 n. 42 Brunt, P.A. 94 n. 191, 95 n. 196, 171
Aristotle 13‑14, 16, 22‑24, 75, 130 Brutus, M. Iunius 34, 43 n. 4, 82, 140
Arnim, H. von 38, 43 n. 17, 44 n. 23, 140 n. 10
n. 4, 141 nn. 18; 21, 142 n. 60 Cadius Rufus, L. 48, 95 n. 194
Arrian of Nikomedia 21‑22, 108, 147 Caesar, Julius 27
Arsinoë III 94 n. 187 Caligula 140 n. 2
Artaxias 22 Campanile, M.D. 85, 94 n. 182, 116 n.
Artemis 57 n. 13 61
Asellius Aemilianus 147 Caracalla 104, 115 n. 31, 151‑153, 162
Athenaios 25 n. 22
Attalos III 27 Carter, M. 116 n. 52
Attilius 114 n. 2 Cassius Agrippa, M. 117 n. 73
Augianus Philetanus 169 Cassius Apronianus 114
200 Indices
Cassius Asklepiodotos, C. 109‑110, 114, Dion Chrysostomos 15, 17, 37‑39, 43 n.

116 n. 63, 117 n. 72 12, 44 n. 24, 45, 47‑48, 51, 58 nn. 18;
Cassius Chrestos, C. 56, 112‑114, 113 22, 59 n. 29, 63‑64, 67, 71‑72, 86, 88
figs. 25‑26, 117 nn. 71‑72, 125 n. 41, 89 n. 60, 90 n. 86, 100‑101, 117
Cassius Dion, L. 34, 58 n. 15, 82, 93 n. n. 74, 119‑128, 130‑139, 140 n. 6, 141
157, 108, 114, 115 n. 31, 117 n. 74, nn. 18‑19; 20, 142 nn. 39; 54; 56, 149,
148, 150‑152 165‑172, 174, 175 n. 14, 177
Cassius Nikadas, M. 117 n. 73 Dionysos 22‑23, 48, 150
Cassius Philiskos, C. 32, 110‑112, 110 Dodds, E.R. 173, 175 n. 1
fig. 22, 111 figs. 23‑24, 114 Dölger, F.J. 44 n. 29
Charidemos 143 n. 75 Domitian 29 n. 24, 88 n. 30, 121‑122,
Chrestos, grammateus tou dêmou 107 133, 174
Christiansen, E. 44 n. 32 Domitius, son of Aster 102
Chrysippos 130 Domitius Iulianus, M. 116 n. 38
Cicero, M. Tullius 17, 34, 37, 62‑64, 97, Domitius Paulianus Falco, M. 107, 115
114 n. 2 n. 33, 165
Cicero, Q. Tullius 17, 34 Domitius Paulianus Falco, T. 107, 107
Claudia, mother of Dion 119‑120, 140 fig. 21
n. 3 Domitius Stratokles, M. 107
Claudius 119, 121, 140 n. 2 Domitius Valerianus, M. 116 n. 52
Claudius II Gothicus 53, 157‑159 Doonan, O. 43 n. 1
Claudius Eumolpos 133‑135 Dörner, F.K. 52, 59 n. 32
Claudius Piso, Ti. 85, 105, 108‑109, 116 Dräger, M. 58 n. 18
n. 54 Drusus, M. Livius 142 n. 53
Claudius Quintianus, Ti. 112 Eck, W. 141 n. 36, 175 n. 22
Claudius Tertullianus Sanctus, Ti. 116 Egnatius Rufus, L. 114 n. 2
n. 39 Ehrenberg, V. 93 n. 93
Clodius Albinus 149 Elagabal 47, 104, 150‑151, 153, 156, 162
Coles, R.A. 19, 43 n. 19 n. 22
Commodus 24, 28 n. 5, 29 n. 24, 47, 109, Eunomios, bishop of Nikomedia 15
116 n. 59, 147, 150‑151 Favorinus 38, 131, 143 n. 75
Constantine the Great 154‑155, 160 Fernoux, H.-L. 44 n. 28, 58 n. 14, 73,
Corsten, T. 28 n. 8, 97, 114 n. 1, 115 nn. 84‑85, 87 n. 6, 89 n. 52, 91 n. 93, 92
6; 10, 116 n. 47 nn. 118; 124; 132, 93 nn. 143; 170, 94
Courtonne, Y. 57 n. 3 n. 172, 97, 99, 109, 114 n. 1, 115 nn.
Cuvigny, M. 17, 141 n. 21, 178 n. 1, 179 3; 6‑7; 9; 12; 14; 17; 26‑28; 32; 35, 116
n. 3 nn. 44; 50; 54‑57; 61, 117 nn. 70‑71,
Dalman, K.O. 55 169, 175 nn. 8; 10‑11
Deininger, J. 83, 85‑86, 93 nn. 160‑161; Flavius, T. 84
163; 165; 167; 169, 94 nn. 171; 184; Flavius Archippos 67, 115 n. 19, 133‑136,
189, 95 n. 198, 116 n. 60, 171 165‑166, 168, 171, 174
De Laet, S. 90 n. 69, 116 n. 60 Flavius Damianos, T. 71, 78, 151
De Ruyt, C. 91 n. 110 Flavius Dion, see Dion Chrysostomos
Dimitriev, S. 41 Flavius Hipparchos 88 n. 30
Diokletian 31, 40, 52, 106, 154, 156, 159 Flavius Petro, T. 168
Dion Cassius, see Cassius Dion Flavius Phidiskos, T. 103
Index of Persons 201
Flavius Sabinus, father of Vespasian 90 Honneth, A. 172‑173

n. 66, 168‑169 Hostilius Ascanius, C. 115 n. 4
Flavius Sabinus, T. 121‑122, 133 Jones, A.H.M. 93 n. 154
Flavius Severianus Asklepiodotos 75, Jones, C.P. 17, 89 n. 45, 90 n. 69, 95 n.
103‑104, 151‑153, 153 fig. 31, 165 198, 141 nn. 19; 35, 142 nn. 37; 39; 55,
Flavius Silôn, T. 38, 78, 103‑104, 104 178 nn. 1‑2
fig. 19 Julian 34, 152
Foss, S. 19, 163 n. 40 Julianus, P. Domitius 115 n. 33
France, J. 90 n. 69 Julius Gavinius Sacerdos, M. 103
Friesen, S.J. 84‑85, 93 n. 159, 94 nn. 171; Julius Piso 88 n. 29
185, 171 Junius C(h)ilo, M. 95 n. 194
Fronto, M. Cornelius 37 Justinian 160, 163 n. 39
Fukuyama, F. 172 Karnapp, W. 163 n. 32
Furia Prima 133 Kleanthes 130
Gaius, jurist 62, 87 n. 8 Konstan, D. 175 n. 15
Gaius, oikonomikos 92 n. 126 Körte, A. 59 n. 37
Galba 88 n. 27, 109, 116 n. 63 Kraft, K. 28 n. 11, 42, 44 nn. 33‑35, 163
Galeria Valeria 163 n. 26 n. 33
Galerius 163 n. 26 Krasser, H. 88 n. 26
Gallienus 23, 42, 53, 58 n. 16, 155‑159, Kroisos 22
159 fig. 34a Kyros 22
Gauthier, P. 89 n. 55 Lactantius 34, 154
Gelzer, M. 166 Laenius, M. 114 n. 2
Germanicus 57 n. 11, 65, 87 n. 23 Largus, Julius 74
Geta 23, 28 n. 5 Laum, B. 90 n. 68, 91 n. 109
Gibbon, E. 147 Leacock, S. 138, 165
Gordian III 42, 116 n. 52 Lenski, N. 90 n. 71
Gregory of Nazianzos 34 Leschhorn, W. 28 n. 1
Gregory of Nyssa 34, 43 n. 6, 92 n. 129 Libanios 15, 24, 34‑35, 43 n. 5, 51, 58 n.
Guinea Diaz, P. 89 n. 44, 115 n. 30 25, 89 n. 43, 152, 154, 161, 162 n. 23,
Hadrian 25, 42, 51, 55, 63‑65, 99‑100, 163 n. 42
147‑148, 150, 157 Lichtenstein, A. 163 n. 27
Hägg, T. 43 nn. 16; 22 Licinius 154
Halfmann, H. 162 n. 13 Liebenam, W. 89 n. 43
Hannestad, N. 44 n. 31 Liebeschuetz, J.M.W.G 93 n. 149, 163
Hannibal 22, 25‑26, 125 nn. 38; 44
Hardy, T. 165 Link, S. 19
Harrer, G. 162 n. 5 Lintott, A. 87 n. 8, 89 n. 63, 90 nn. 64;
Harries, J. 57 n. 9 67
Hawley, R. 144 n. 111 Longus, [Ca]tilius 115 n. 11
Helena, mother of Constantine 160 Lucius 75‑76, 167
Herakles 22, 48, 150 Lucius Verus 151
Herodes Atticus 71 Lucullus, L. Licinius 28
Herodian 34, 148‑150, 170 Lukianos 154, 160
Hippodamos 23‑24 Lysimachos 21
Højte, J.M. 28 n. 1, 163 n. 31 Ma, J. 145 nn. 122; 127
Homer 130, 143 n. 70
202 Indices
Macrianus 53, 157‑159, 159 fig. 39b, 163 Paquius Scaeva, P. 88 n. 27

n. 35 Pasikrates, father of Dion 119‑120, 140
Macrinus 155‑156 nn. 3‑4, 169, 177
Madsen, J.M. 115 n. 8 Paul, apostle 84
Maecenas 82 Paulus, jurist 90 n. 77
Magie, D. 89 n. 58 Paulus Orosius 53
Marcianus, jurist 90 n. 77 Pausanias 45‑46, 88 n. 32, 166
Marcus Antonius 82 Peristiany, J.G. 166, 173, 175 nn. 1‑3
Marcus Aurelius 43 n. 7, 151, 169 Pertinax 147
Marek, C. 28 n. 1, 43 n. 3, 93 nn. 142; Pescennius Niger 147‑151, 170
146‑147; 155; 167, 94 nn. 175; 181, 115 Pflaum, H.-G. 116 n. 61
n. 20, 162 n. 3, 163 n. 29 Philammon 94 n. 187
Markiane 102 Philip II 130
Marshall, A.J. 87 n. 8 Philip the Arab 24, 29 n. 24
Martin, D.G. 94 n. 173 Philostratos 90 n. 83, 119, 124, 136
Martinianus 46, 87 n. 16 Photios 37, 43 nn. 16; 22, 119, 179 n. 3
Matthews, J. 162 n. 19 Pinnius 114 n. 2
Maximinus Daia 154 Pitt-Rivers, J. 175 n. 1
Maximus 64, 135‑136, 171 Plancius Varus, M. 56, 59 n. 35, 112
McKitterick, R. 175 n. 16 Pliny, the Elder 22
Merkelbach, R. 58 n. 22, 112, 116 n. 68, Pliny, the Younger 17, 34‑37, 43 nn. 8;
149, 162 n. 3 9; 12, 45, 62, 64, 66‑68, 71‑72, 74, 86,
Meyer, E. 61, 87 n. 1 88 nn. 26‑30, 01 nn. 106; 114‑115, 101,
Millar, F. 43 n. 15, 117 n. 74 119, 121, 133‑136, 147, 160, 162 n. 23,
Mitchell, S. 29 n. 23 165, 171, 174
Mithradates VI 26‑28, 53 Plutarch 34
Mithras 73 Polemo 131, 143 n. 75
Modestinus, jurist 71, 83 Poliôn, Timetianos 104
Moles, J. 43 n. 4, 93 n. 156, 140 n. 4, 141 Polybios 94 n. 187
n. 14 Pompey the Great 16, 62, 67, 87 n. 8
Mommsen, T. 61, 88 n. 34 Pomponios 71
Mouritsen, F. 19 Priapos 73
Mucius Scaevola Pontifex, Q. 64 Price, M.J. 29 n. 24, 44 n. 36
Musonius Rufus 120‑121 Priscus, Marius 43 n. 10
Nero 65‑66, 91 n. 97, 110, 125, 140 n. 2 Prokopios, historian 153, 161, 163 n.
Nerva 119, 121‑122, 124, 174, 177 39
Nielsen, I. 29 n. 29 Prokopios, usurper 51
Nikomedes I 21, 25‑26 Prusias I 21‑23, 23 fig. 2, 26, 28 n. 5
Nikomedes II Epiphanes 27, 52 Prusias II 27, 52
Nikomedes III 27 Pupius, Cn. 114 n. 2
Nikomedes IV 27‑28 Pythagoras 130
Odysseus 14, 138 Pythias 73, 76‑77, 167
Oliver, J. 89 n. 43 Quass, F. 44 n. 26, 69, 89 nn. 53; 56‑57;
Paetus Thrasea 94 n. 189 59, 90 n. 76, 91 nn. 96; 98; 105; 107,
Pallas, M. Antonius 121 92 nn. 116; 122; 132; 135‑138, 93 n.
Papianus, T. Ulpius Aelianus, jurist 140, 126, 169, 175 n. 7
105‑106, 108 Quietus 53, 157‑158, 163 n. 35
Index of Persons 203
Quintus, son of Quintus 102 Tarquinius Priscus 86, 95 n. 194

Raggi, A. 140 n. 4 Terentius Hispon, P 114 n. 2
Ramsay, W.M. 94 n. 185 Theocritus 152
Rémy, B. 57 n. 11, 87 n. 24 Tiberius 65, 140 n. 2
Reuter, D. 145 nn. 122; 125 Titus 119, 121
Richardson, J.R. 115 n. 13 Torraca, L. 93 n. 156
Robert, L. 25, 29 n. 26, 48, 58 nn. 17; 20; Trajan 15, 17, 34, 37, 43 nn. 7; 12, 64‑66,
22, 91 n. 90, 92 n. 116, 141 n. 23, 162 88 nn. 26‑30, 89 n. 46, 91 n. 106, 99,
nn. 3; 10‑12 103‑104, 119, 124‑125, 133‑136, 141 n.
Robinson, O.F. 87 n. 9 35, 143 n. 75, 150, 174, 177
Rupilius, P. 114 n. 2 Trell, B.L. 29 n. 24, 44 n. 36
Sabinius, Statius 35 Ulpian, jurist 68, 71, 89 n. 46
Sacerdos, son of Menander 115 n. 37 Ulpius Titius Calpurnianus Fado 105
Şahin, S. 28 n. 1, 29 n. 20, 58 n. 22, 91 nn. Valens 51, 160
99; 104, 112, 115 n. 22, 116 nn. 65‑68, Valentinian 160
117 nn. 69‑70; 72 Valerian 42, fig. 7, 48, 156‑159, 163 n.
Salmeri, G. 88 n. 41, 128, 140 n. 4, 141 25
n. 19, 143 n. 63, 173‑174, 175 nn. 18; Valerian II 42 fig. 7
21 Valerius Flaccus, L. 27
Saoteros 47, 58 n. 15 Van Dam, R. 57 n. 3
Schamp, J. 43 n. 16 Varenus Rufus 86, 95 n. 194, 131‑133,
Schneider, A.M. 55, 163 nn. 32; 37 135, 145 n. 102, 178, 179 n. 4
Scullard, H.H. 166 Vedius Cornelianus Strato, P. 115 n. 5
Seianus, L. Aelius 168 Verres, C. 62
Seneca, L. Annaeus 16, 121 Vespasian 65, 55, 90 n. 66, 92 n. 127, 112,
Septimius Severus 47, 109, 147‑151 115 n. 13, 119, 168
Sheppard, A.R. 142 n. 39, 179 n. 4 Veyne, P. 69, 89 nn. 51; 54, 126, 168‑169,
Sherwin-White, A.N. 35, 43 nn. 9; 13, 87 175 n. 4
n. 8, 91 n. 106, 140 n. 4 Vielmetti, C. 19, 141 n. 21, 143 n. 79, 179
Sokrates, philosopher 14, 130 n. 4
Sokrates Chrestos 27‑28 Vitruvius 29 n. 15, 72, 90 n. 84
Soranus 109 Weiler, G. 90 n. 68
Stephen of Byzantion 21‑22, 29 n. 24 Weiser,W. 159, 163 nn. 25; 33‑34; 36
Stini, F. 141 n. 15 Weiss, P. 83, 90 n. 71, 92 nn. 123; 126
Strabon 21‑22, 49, 53, 84‑85 Xenophon 14, 170
Suetonius 16, 27, 34, 90 n. 66 Zenon 130
Sulla, L. Cornelius 57 n. 1 Zeus 27
Synesios 37 Ziethen, G. 142 n. 38
Tacitus 16, 34, 36, 43 n. 8, 65, 82, 86, 87 Zipoites 21
n. 23, 88 n. 30, 114 Zosimos 156‑157
Talbert, R. 87 nn. 19; 21; 22; 25, 88 n.
31
Index Locorum
Ammianus Marcellinus Athenaios

17.7.1‑8: 161, 163 n. 43 2.43a: 29 n. 27
22.13.5: 161, 163 n. 43
31.14: 59 n. 31 Basil of Kaisareia (“the Great”)
Epistulae: 34
Appian 74: 46‑47, 57 n.3‑5, 87 n. 16
Bellum civile
1.35: 142 n. 53 Bible
Bellum Mithridaticum Proverbs
77: 29 n. 32, 33‑34 22.1: 19 n. 2
Matthew
Apuleius 11.19: 90 n. 64
Metamorphoses Mark
1.25‑26: 73, 75‑77, 91 n. 112, 167 2.16: 90 n. 64
Luke
Aristides 5.30: 90 n. 64
Hieroi logoi 15.1: 90 n. 64
4.81: 79, 92 n. 128 Acts
Orationes 19: 92 n. 125
18: 163 n. 42 19.31: 93 n. 164
18.6: 29 n. 22 19.35: 57 n. 13
Aristophanes Bordeaux itinerary, see Itinerarium

Acharnenses: 91 n. 102 Burdigalense
Vespae: 91 n. 102
Brutus
Aristoteles Epistulae: 34, 43 n. 4
Athenaiôn politeia 59: 93 n. 156
51.1‑4: 75, 91 n. 103
Politica Cassius Dion
1252a24‑1253a17: 143 n. 67 51.20.5‑9: 82, 93 n. 151
1253a1: 13, 19 n. 1 52.35: 93 n. 153
1296a7: 14, 19 n. 4 60.33: 95 n. 194
1327a11‑1331b23: 23, 28 n. 12 62.26: 116 n. 63
1330a34: 28 n. 13 72.12: 58 n. 15
1330b8: 28 n. 14 74.4‑6: 162 n. 1
1330b32: 29 nn. 16‑18 74.8: 150, 162 n. 9
1331a30: 29 n. 19 77.9: 151‑152, 162 n. 16
77.19: 162 n. 13
Arrian of Nikomedia 77.21: 152, 162 n. 18
FGrHist 15.6.29: 22, 28 n. 4
Index Locorum 205
Chronikon Paschale: 53: 7.1: 145 n. 113

475 (Dindorf): 51, 59 n. 30 7.22: 58 n. 28, 145 n. 124
527 (Dindorf): 163 n. 39 7.22‑63: 145 n. 115
7.28: 145 n. 116; n. 134, 175 n. 6
Cicero: 34, 63 7.29: 145 n. 133
De lege agraria 7.33: 145 n. 117, 145 n. 129
2.40: 114 n. 2 7.38‑39: 145 n. 118; n. 126
Ep ad Atticum 7.53: 145 n. 130
5.21.11‑13: 87 n. 11 7.54‑58: 145 n. 119
6.1: 140 n. 10 7.60‑62: 145 n. 120
6.1.6‑7: 87 n. 11 7.80: 145 n. 121
6.1.15: 87 n. 10 7.126: 145 n. 128
Ep. ad familiares 97 12.13: 143 n. 75
13.9: 114 n. 2 13.9‑12: 141 n. 16
13.47: 114 n. 2 20.1: 89 n. 60
13.61‑63: 114 n. 2 32.67: 43 n. 21
13.65: 114 n. 2 33.57: 43 n. 21
Ep. ad Quintum fratrem 34: 124
1.1.: 17 34.9: 87 n. 14, 95 n. 198
1.1.37‑38: 19 n. 13 34.16: 141 n. 29
In Verrem: 62 34.22: 141 n. 29
34.42: 95 n. 198
Codex Theodosianus 35: 38
1.4.3: 87 n. 2 35.10: 143 n. 75
35.15: 57 n. 8
Codex Vindobonensis 326, see Tabula 36: 38
Peutingeriana 36.6: 59 n. 29
37: 38
Corpus Juris Civilis: 40 38: 122‑124, 177, 179 n. 3
Codex Iustiniani 38‑41: 43 n. 16, 141 n. 19
1.54.3: 116 n. 42 38.23‑39: 58 n. 18
Digesta 38.24: 47, 57 n. 7
27.1.6.14: 83, 93 n. 162 38.26: 141 n. 31
49.1.25: 175 n. 17 38.32: 90 n. 69
50.2.1‑2: 89 n. 47: 38.33: 95 n. 198
50.3.1: 44 n. 24, 89 n. 46; nn. 48‑49 38.36: 95 nn. 197‑198, 141 n. 26
50.8.6: 90 n. 68 38.37: 141 n. 25
50.12: 71, 90 nn. 75‑77 38.38: 87 n. 14, 141 n. 27, 175 n. 13
38.39: 58 n. 21‑22
38.42: 141 n. 24
Dion Cassius, see Cassius Dion
39: 88 n. 41, 123‑124, 162 n. 7, 177, 179
n. 3
Dion Chrysostomos
39.4: 87 n. 14, 95 n. 198
Orationes
39.5: 141 n. 29
1‑4: 125
39.6: 141 n. 29
4: 38
39.7‑8: 141 n. 30
7: 43 n. 16, 45‑46, 57 n. 2, 136‑140, 145 n.
39.8: 141 n. 28
122; n. 125, 172, 178, 178 n. 1
206 Indices
40: 125‑128, 130, 141 n. 19, 144 n. 102, 45.13: 142 n. 56,143 n. 64
177 45.14: 143 n. 65
40.5: 141 n. 19 45.15: 142 n. 42; n. 49, 143 n. 66
40.6‑8: 142 n. 50 45.15‑16: 142 n. 44; n. 51
40.8: 142 n. 45, 145 n. 131 46: 91 n. 106, 120, 124, 177, 179 n. 3
40.9: 19 n. 9, 142 n. 54 46.3: 140 n. 1
40.11: 142 n. 43 46.5: 140 n. 10, 175 n. 14
40.12: 142 n. 47 46.5‑11: 140 n. 13
40.13: 19 n. 9, 142 n. 41 46.6: 140 n. 12
40.14: 142 n. 41 46.8: 91 n. 106, 140 n. 8
40.17: 142 n. 55, n. 57 46.9: 140 n. 9
40.20: 142 n. 57 46.13: 140 n. 9
40.29: 142 n. 56 46.14: 87 n. 13, 91 n. 108, 140 n. 12
40.30: 142 n. 55; n. 61 47: 130‑131, 144 n. 102, 178, 179 n. 4
41: 128, 130, 177 47.2: 143 n. 70
41.6: 140 nn. 3‑4, 145 n. 112 47.5: 143 n. 70
42: 142 n. 40, 177 47.7: 143 n. 71
43: 132, 178 47.9: 143 n. 72
43.1: 143 n. 88 47.11: 143 n. 68
43.6‑7: 144 n. 90 47.16‑17: 58 n. 26, 142 n. 43
43.7: 143 n. 82, 145 n. 105; n. 132 47.17: 58 n. 25
43.8: 144 n. 92 47.18: 145 n. 131
43.10: 19 n. 16 47.18‑20: 143 n. 69
43.11: 19 n. 16, 144 n. 92 47.19: 90 n. 78, 143 n. 77, 144 n. 91, 145
43.12: 19 n. 16 n. 104
43.13 (lost): 19 n. 16 47.21: 141 n. 18, 143 n. 73
44: 39, 122, 141 n. 19, 172, 177, 178 nn. 47.24‑25: 143 n. 83
1‑2 48: 39, 131, 145 n. 102, 178, 179 n. 4
44.1: 141 n. 20, 143 n. 70 48.1: 175 n. 12
44.3: 140 n. 3 48.1‑2: 143 n. 79
44.5: 141 n. 19 48.11: 90 n. 74; n. 78, 143 n. 81
44.6: 141 n. 22 48.17: 141 n. 29, 143 n. 80
44.9: 28 n. 9 49: 39, 44 n. 25, 88 n. 40, 143 n. 86, 172,
44.11: 141 n. 19 178, 178 n. 1, 179 n. 4
45: 125, 127, 144 n. 102, 178, 179 n. 4 49.1‑13: 44 n. 25
45.2: 141 n. 32, 145 n. 108 49.14‑15: 44 n. 25
45.3: 43 n. 12, 87 n. 17, 141 n. 33, 142 n. 50: 132, 172, 178, 179 n. 4
41, 145 n. 109 50.1: 88 n. 38, 100, 115 n. 18
45.6: 90 n. 86, 142 n. 48 50.3: 143 n. 85
45.7: 89 n. 42 50.10: 143 n. 84, 143 n. 87
45.7‑10: 175 n. 19 51: 142 n. 40, 175 n. 20, 177
45.8: 87 n. 18, 142 n. 46, 143 n. 78, 144 64: 38
n. 91
45.9: 142 n. 52, 144 n. 91 Eusebios
45.10: 141 n. 17, 142 n. 52 8.13.2: 163 n. 28
45.11: 143 n. 76
45.12: 142 n. 56
Index Locorum 207
Expositio totius mundi et gentium Libanios

49: 49, 58 n. 24 Epistulae: 34
Orationes
Fontes iuris romani anteiustiniani 1 (Autobiography): 162‑163
1.170‑175: 62, 87 n. 5 1.51‑53: 163 n. 41
1.409‑414: 95 n. 195 1.55: 162 n. 20; n. 23
2.33: 89 n. 42
Gaius 8: 163 n. 27
Institutiones: 62, 87 n. 8 61 (Monody on Nikomedia): 161, 162 n.
21, 163 n. 42
Gregory of Nazianz 61.7: 24, 29 n. 21
Epistulae: 34 61.17: 24, 29 n. 21, 58 n. 25
Gregory of Nyssa Notitia Galliarum: 57 n. 9

Epistulae: 34
14: 34, 43 n. 6 Orosius
15: 92 n. 129 6.2.23: 53, 59 n. 33
Herodian Pausanias
3.2.7‑9: 148‑150, 162 n. 2; n. 6; n. 8; 163 7.17.3: 88 n. 32
n. 32, 170 10.4.1: 45, 57 n. 1
3.3.3: 162 n. 4
Philostratos
Historia Augusta: 34 Vitae Sophistarum
Commodus: 58 n. 15 487: 141 n. 34
488: 145 n. 110
Homer 548: 90 n. 83
Odyssey
6.262‑273: 138, 145 n. 125 Photios: 43 n. 22
9.34: 141 n. 20 71 (35b): 117 n. 75
9.174‑176: 14, 19 n. 3 209 (165a): 140 n. 5
Itinerarium Antonini Pliny the elder

139‑143: 33, 43 n. 2 Historia naturalis
3.30: 115 n. 13
Itinerarium Burdigalense 5.148: 22, 28 n. 6
571‑575: 33, 43 n. 2
Pliny the younger
Julian Epistulae: 34‑37, 62,
Epistulae: 34 1.19: 88 n. 36
2.11: 43 n. 10; n. 12; n. 14
Lactantius 2.12: 43 n. 10
De mortibus persecutorum 3.18: 43 n. 14
7: 154, 163 n. 26 4.9: 95 n. 194
4.10: 35
5.7: 90 n. 68
208 Indices
5.20: 95 n. 194 10.81: 88 n. 30, 133‑135, 140 n. 7, 144 n.

6.5: 95 n. 194 92; nn. 98‑102
6.13: 95 n. 194 10.82: 134‑136, 140 n. 7, 144 n. 92, 145
6.16: 43 n. 8 n. 103
6.20: 43 n. 8 10.93: 43 n. 7
6.29: 95 n. 194 10.109: 87 n. 7
7.6: 94 n. 192 10.110: 88 n. 29
7.10: 95 n. 194 10.111: 88 n. 29
7.18: 90 n. 68 10.112: 88 n. 37
9.5: 19 n. 13 10.113: 89 n. 50
10.1‑14: 36 10.114: 87 n. 4
10.3a: 43 n. 10 10.118‑119: 91 n. 97
10.3b: 36 Panegyricus
10.7: 36 42.1: 145 n. 106
10.9: 36
10.10‑11: 115 n. 16 Plutarch: 34
10.13: 88 n. 26 Lykourgos
10.17a: 90 n. 87, 175 n. 12 13.5: 19 n. 7
10.17b: 90 n. 82 Moralia
10.18: 43 n. 7 639E: 91 n. 97
10.19‑20: 90 n. 71 Sulla
10.23: 90 n. 70, 142 n. 54 16.4: 57 n. 1
10.24‑25: 91 n. 106
10.27‑28: 64, 87 n. 15, 145 n. 107 Polybios
10.31‑32: 90 n. 71 15.25.12: 94 n. 187
10.34: 19 n. 8, 43 n. 7,
10.37: 90 n. 72; n. 81, 162 n. 23 Prokopios
10.38: 90 n. 73 Aedificia
10.39: 90 nn. 79‑80 5.2: 153, 162 n. 22, 163 n. 39
10.41: 29 n. 25 5.3: 153, 161 fig. 35,162 n. 22.
10.43: 91 n. 113
10.44: 43 n. 7, 91 n. 113 Ptolemy
10.47: 142 n. 59 Geographia
10.48: 88 n. 28 5.1: 28 n. 3
10.50: 43 n. 7
10.51: 43 n. 11 Sallust
10.54: 87 n. 12, 140 n. 10 Bellum Jugurthinum
10.56: 143 n. 89 86: 19 n. 6
10.58: 115 n. 19, 144 nn. 93‑94, 144 n. 99
10.58‑59: 133, 144 n. 96, 144 n. 99
Seneca
10.60: 144 n. 97
Apocolocyntosis: 16
10.66: 43 n. 7
Ep. ad Lucilium
10.70: 142 n. 54
83.12‑14: 19 n. 11
10.75: 90 n. 68, 91 n. 98
10.79: 67, 87 n. 4, 88 n. 33; n. 39, 91 nn.
Stephen of Byzantion
114‑115
Ethnika: 29 n. 24
10.80: 43 n. 7
Index Locorum 209
474 (Meineke): 28 n. 1 Xenophon

537 (Meineke): 28 n. 4 Hellenika: 170
Memorabilia
Strabon 4.6.14: 15, 19 n. 5
11.14.6: 28 n. 7
12.4.3: 28 n. 4 Zosimos
12.4.7: 22, 28 n. 1, 49, 57 n. 10, 58 n. 23, 1.32‑35: 156‑157, 163 nn. 29‑30
59 n. 34
14.1.42: 94 n. 184 Inscriptions
Suda: 37 CIL
5.5262: 90 n. 68
Suetonius: 16
Divus Julius IK
27, 29 nn. 30‑31 7.4: 112‑114, 113 fig. 26, 117 n. 69
Tiberius 9.21‑30: 28 n. 10
42: 19 n. 11 9.25‑28: 59 n. 42, 112, 113 fig. 25, 116
Nero nn. 65‑66.
25: 91 n. 97 9.29‑30: 48, 59 n. 36
Vespasian 9.34: 115 n. 4
1: 90 n. 66 9.51‑52: 116 n. 67
1‑2: 168, 175 n. 5 9.57: 91 n. 91
23: 92 n. 127 9.60: 58 n. 14, 75, 91 n. 105, 103‑104, 115
Titus n. 30, 152, 153 fig. 31, 162 n. 17
7: 19 n. 11 9.61: 91 n. 91; n. 94, 92 n. 139
9.64: 58 n. 14
Synesios: 37 9.65: 92 n. 139
9.85: 110‑112, 110‑111 figs. 22‑24, 116
Tabula Peutingeriana 33 fig. 6, 51 n. 64.
9.116: 58 n. 14, 117 n. 70
Tacitus: 16 9.554: 81, 93 n. 144
Agricola 10.73: 93 n. 169
19: 89 n. 62 10.726: 92 n. 119, 116 n. 39
Annales: 10.1065: 117 n. 73
1.74: 94 n. 193 10.1071: 117 n. 73
2.54: 65, 87 n. 23 10.1209: 91 n. 89, 92 n. 139
4.37: 82, 93 n. 152 13.627: 58 n. 22, 91 n. 88, 93 n. 166, 109,
12.22: 95 n. 194 116 n. 54; n. 59; n. 62
14.46: 95 n. 194 17.3080: 162 n. 15
15.21‑22: 94 n. 189 25.6: 73, 91 n. 90
15.33: 116 n. 63 26.7: 115 n. 9
27.1‑6: 93 n. 141
Vitruvius 27.2: 115 n. 24
De architectura: 27.3: 92 n. 117, 94 n. 178
1.4: 29 n. 15 27.4: 89 n. 59, 92 n. 117
10.1‑2: 72, 90 n. 84 27.5: 94 n. 183
27.6: 115 n. 28, 175 n. 9
210 Indices
27.7: 107‑108, 107 fig. 21, 115 n. 33, 116 Inschriften des Asklepieions
n. 49; n. 51 151: 94 n. 176, 116 n. 38
27.8: 91 n. 106
27.9: 58 n. 27, 91 n. 106, 92 n. 116, 94 nn. IPriene
178‑179; n. 181 106: 93 n. 154
27.10: 92 n. 117; n. 120, 92 n. 130, 94 n.
178 Marek (1993)
27.11: 91 n. 106, 115 n. 33 19: 94 n. 181
27.17: 92 n. 117; n. 120, 94 n. 174, 105‑106, 95: 84, 93 n. 167, 94 n. 174
116 n. 40; nn. 44‑45
27.19: 115 n. 33 OGIS
27.20: 103, 115 n. 26 531: 84, 93 n. 167, 94 n. 174
27.29: 94 n. 174 549: 92 n. 118
27.38: 91 n. 91, 115 n. 25, 116 n. 48
27.37: 92 n. 117 SEG
27.46: 94 n. 183 51 (2001) 1709: 59 n. 35
27.47: 108‑109, 116 nn. 54‑55
27.50: 103, 115 n. 26
TAM
27.51: 94 n. 178, 116 n. 39
4.1.25: 57 n. 6
27.53: 94 n. 174, 116 n. 38
4.1.33: 94 n. 177; n. 183, 115 n. 36
27.54: 105, 116 n. 41, 108,
4.1.34: 57 n. 6
29.7: 92 n. 119, 106, 116 n. 46, 116 n. 39
4.1.42: 91 n. 89, 93 n. 148, 115 nn. 33‑34
29.12: 116 n. 38
4.1.60: 81, 93 n. 145
29.16: 91 n. 101
4.1.70: 115 n. 5
31.16: 94 n. 180
4.1.258: 101, 102 fig. 18, 115 n. 22
36.146: 91 n. 111
4.1.262: 75, 91 n. 104
39.1a: 90 n. 85
4.1.329: 101, 115 n. 21
39.3: 43 n. 20, 92 n. 121, 103; 115 n. 29,
130 fig. 19
Coins
39.5: 91 n. 89, 92 n. 134
39.13: 91 n. 100, 93 n. 168, 105, 106
RGMG
fig. 20, 116 n. 43
1.2 Commune Bithyniae 44: 42 fig. 7
39.16: 115 n. 23
1.3 Nikaia 30: 48, 58 n. 17
39.18: 115 n. 19
1.3 Nikaia 54: 28 n. 10
39.19: 91 n. 89, 92 n. 134
1.3 Nikaia 55: 28 n. 10
39.21: 93 n. 150
1.3 Nikaia 61: 58 n. 19
39.24: 92 n. 139, 115 n. 37
1.3 Nikaia 165: 24 fig. 3
39.33: 140 n. 6
1.3 Nikaia 302: 150, 162 n. 12
40.1042: 92 n. 139
1.3 Nikaia 305‑306: 150, 162 n. 12
1.3 Nikaia 310: 150, 162 n. 12
IKourion
1.3 Nikaia 316: 150, 162 n. 12
127‑145: 44 n. 30
1.3 Nikaia 355‑356: 150, 162 n. 11
1.3 Nikaia 359‑360: 150, 162 n. 11
ILS 1.3 Nikaia 826 similis: 23 fig. 2
915: 88 n. 27 1.3 Nikaia 846: 158‑159, 159 fig. 34
2927: 90 n. 68 1.3 Nikaia 867: 163 n. 35
8858: 116 n. 59
Index Locorum 211
1.3 Nikaia 867 similis: 158‑159, 159 1.4 Prusa: 48: 28 n. 5

fig. 34 1.4 Prusa: 116: 23 fig. 2, 28 n. 5
1.3 Nikaia 868: 163 n. 35
1.3 Nikaia 872: 163 n. 35 RIC
1.3 Nikaia 873: 163 n. 35 961: 147‑148, 148 fig. 30
1.3 Nikomedia 14‑17: 57 n. 11
1.3 Nikomedia 33: 29 n. 24 SNG Aulock:
1.3 Nikomedia 74: 29 n. 24 733: 158‑159, 159 fig. 34
1.3 Nikomedia 75: 29 n. 24 860: 42 fig. 7, 48, 153
1.3 Nikomedia 138: 29 n. 24
1.3 Nikomedia 387: 24 fig. 3, 29 n. 24, Papyri
47
1.3 Nikomedia 405‑421: 58 n. 16 P.Oxy.: 17
1.3 Nikomedia 407: 42 fig. 7, 48, 153 2407: 43 n. 18
1.3 Nikomedia 414: 58 n. 16
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URBAN LIFE AND LOCAL POLITICS

THE SMALL WORLD OF DION CHRYSOSTOMOS

THE DANISH NATIONAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION’S

AARHUS UNIVERSITY PRESS a

© Aarhus University Press 2008

Printed in Denmark by Narayana Press, Gylling

ISBN: 978 87 7934 350 4

AARHUS UNIVERSITY PRESS

White Cross Mills

The publication of this volume has been made possible by a

Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre for Black Sea

My first meeting with Dion Chrysostomos took place on a rainy winter’s

Kolding, January 2008 Tønnes Bekker-Nielsen

2. Before the Romans 21

3. Windows on the Past 31

4. The Urban Environment 45

6. The Political Class 97

7. A Political Biography: Dion Chrysostomos 119

8. The Bithynian Cities under the Later Empire 147

9. Conclusions: Urban Life and Local Politics 165

Appendix: The Dates of Dion’s Municipal Orations 177

1. Map of Roman Bithynia (Inger Bjerg Poulsen) 18

Hybris and stasis

enabling him to establish advantageous long-term relationships of patronage,

Formal and informal politics

Another way to undermine a person’s credibility is to suggest that he is

Fig. 1. Map of Roman Bithynia (Inger Bjerg Poulsen)

A tale of three cities

of good water.14 An eastward-facing slope is preferable, a northward orien-

building programme and ancillary facilities required for a Hellenistic royal

Kings and emperors

Townscapes and landscapes

Fig. 5. Nikaia seen from the east (author’s photo).

Fig. 6. Detail of the Tabula Peutingeriana (Staatsbibliothek, Vienna)

ridatic Wars) and in Plutarch’s biographies of Roman commanders and their

as I was going to the metropolis of the Cappadocians [Kaisareia], I

and Diokletian’s administrative reorganization in the late third century. One

23 Arnim 1891, 368‑369

living as artisans, in the tertiary sector and as hangers-on or slaves of urban

Titles and status

Nikomedia found itself reduced to two neochorates until the mid-century,

Fig. 8. Map of Nikaia (Inger Bjerg Poulsen)

City plan and architecture

The city [Nikaia] is sixteen stadia in circuit and is quadrangular in

It is difficult to find elsewhere a city plan like that of Nikaia; one

As one would expect of a Hellenistic city, Nikaia had a Hippodamic street

Fig. 9. Remains of the southern wall of

Fig. 11. Map of Nikomedia (Inger Bjerg Poulsen)

Fig. 12. Map of Prusa

provincial governor, M. Plancius Varus, who appears in the nominative case,

The nature of Roman Law

Roman annexation and the Lex Pompeia

Fig. 17. The east (Lefke) gate of Nikaia,

honour of the ruler or leading citizens, dedications to the gods or memorials

that issued by the eminent jurist Q. Mucius Scaevola Pontifex as governor of

Emperor and senate

threatened by internal unrest or external aggression, and consequently housed

but, in accordance with Greek tradition, their primary purpose is likely to

evidence is skewed in favour of the larger and exceptional liturgies, which

Urban revenues and finances