Imperiasl Building in Eastern Roman Provinces_ Mitchell, S - [PDF Document] (2024)

Department of the Classics, Harvard University

Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman ProvincesAuthor(s):Stephen MitchellReviewed work(s):Source: Harvard Studies inClassical Philology, Vol. 91 (1987), pp. 333-365Published by:Department of the Classics, Harvard UniversityStable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/311413 .Accessed: 03/12/2012 03:05

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IMPERIAL BUILDING IN THE EASTERN ROMAN PROVINCES

STEPHEN MITCHELL

" A S I contemplate the greatness of your fortune and yourspirit, it seems entirely appropriate to point out to youconstruction

works that are worthy of your eternal renown and your glory, andwhich will be as useful as they are splendid." So Pliny began hisletter to Trajan inviting him to support a scheme to build a canallinking Lake Sapanca, in the territory of Nicomedia, with the Seaof Marmara. He concluded by remarking that where the kings ofBithynia had failed, the emperor should succeed: "I am fired withenthusiasm by this very point, that what the kings had only begun,should be brought to a suc- cessful end by yourself."' It hasalways been an essential part of a king's role to put up public orsacred buildings for the benefit of his community.2 Morespecifically, public building is an activity which

Particular acknowledgement is due to two earlier studies, whichwill be cited by short titles: MacMullen = Ramsay MacMullen, "RomanImperial Building in the Pro- vinces," HSCP 64 (1959) 207-235;Millar, ERW = Fergus Millar, The Emperor in the Roman World (London1977). Without the conceptual framework provided by this book it isdifficult to imagine that the questions posed by this study couldbe answered at all. There is a brief survey of the ideologicalimplications of imperial building in H. Kloft's LiberalitasPrincipis. Herkunft und Bedeutung. Studien zur Prinzipatsideologie(Cologne 1970) 115-120, and an important and detailed discussion ofAugustus' building program in Rome, Italy, and the provinces by D.Kienast, Augustus. Prinzeps und Monarch (Darmstadt 1982) 336-365.However, Kienast, like many scholars who have touched on thistheme, does not always distinguish clearly enough buildings forwhich the emperor took responsibility and those that were simplyerected during his principate.

I Pliny Ep. 10.41.1 and 5. Trajan's name would evidently havebeen linked with the finished product, as it was with the harborwhich Pliny saw under construction at Cen- tumcellae, Ep. 6.31.15f.

2 See Vitr. 1.pr.2: cum vero adtenderem te non solum de vitacommuni omnium curam publicaeque rei constitutionem habere, sedetiam de opportunitate publicorum aedificiorum, ut civitas per tenon solum provinciis esset aucta, verum etiam ut maiestas imperiipublicorum aedificiorum egregias haberet auctoritates ... So it wasin the days of Gilgamesh, lord of Uruk: "In Uruk he built walls, agreat rampart, and the temple of blessed Eannu, for the god of thefirmament Anu, and for Ishtar the goddess of love.

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334 Stephen Mitchell

stands at the center of the traditions of munificence andliberality that shaped aristocratic behavior in the Graeco-Romanworld.3 Witness a single inscription, picked at random fromhundreds, set up by the Actors' Guild at Smyrna for a certainMarcus Aurelius Iulianus, twice Asiarch, stephanephorus and templewarden of the emperors, and priest of Bacchus, on account of hisreverence for the god, his good will in every respect towards hisnative city, the greatness of the buildings which he was erectingthere, and his favorable disposition towards their association.4Better still, consider the extraordinary passage in Josephus'Jewish War, which -lists the building projects of Herod the Great:"For Tripolis, Damascus, and Ptolemais he provided gymnasia, forByblus a wall, for Berytus and Tyre baths, colonnades, temples andmarket places, for Sidon and Damascus theatres, for coastalLaodicea an aqueduct, and for Ascalon baths, magnificent fountainsand cloistered quadrangles ... to Rhodes he over and over againgave money for naval construction, and when the temple of Apollowas burnt down he rebuilt it with new splendor out of his ownpurse. What need be said of his gifts to Lycia or Samos, or of hisliberality to the whole of Ionia, sufficient for the needs of everylocality? Even Athens and Sparta, Nicopolis and Mysian Pergamum arefull of Herod's offer- ings, are they not? And the wide street inSyrian Antioch, once avoided because of the mud, did he not pavetwo and a quarter miles of it with polished marble, and to keep therain off furnish it with colon- nades from end to end?"5

The motivation for this form of liberality is rarely madeexplicit. Public utility was combined with prestige for thebenefactor; better still the permanence of a building might bring(xaivia `t61gvirYt;. Build- ings were an everlasting reminder tooffset the donor's own mortality.6 None of this even needed to besaid, for the whole process of erecting

Look at it still today: the outer wall where the cornice runs,it shines with the brilliance of copper; and the inner wall, it hasno equal" (trans. N. Sandars, The Epic of Gilgamesh [Penguin]).

3 P. Veyne, Le pain et le cirque (Paris 1976) passim, but inparticular 278-279. 4 IGR 4.1133; cf. the advice of Apollonius ofTyana, addressed precisely to the people

of Smyrna: "There is a kind of mutual competition for the commongood, in which one man seeks to give better advice than another, orto hold office better than another, or go on an embassy, or erectfiner buildings than when another man was commissioner; and this, Ithink, is beneficial strife, faction between citizens for thepublic good." (Philostr. VA 4.8, translation by C. P. Jones.)

5 Josephus BJ 1.422 ff., translation by.G. A. Williamson. 6 C.Roueche, JRS 74 (1984) 192 no. 8; Aphrodisias, ? early 6th cent.A.D.

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Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman Provinces 335

public buildings was a central part of civic beneficence, andimposed a tradition of behavior, and a pattern of expectation, fromwhich no Roman emperor, even had he wished, could distance himself.None tried to do so.

The building enterprises of the emperors are a commonplace ofimperial biography from Augustus, who prided himself that he hadfound Rome a city of brick and left it one of marble,7 through hissuc- cessors,8 to Constantine, whose own capital matched Rome inmagnificence, and beyond into the Byzantine age. Some of thegreatest builders took more than a passing interest in the activityitself. Hadrian is said to have tried his hand as an architect inperson,9 and an attrac- tive conjecture suggests that the mostconspicuous Roman builder apart from the emperors themselves,Marcus Agrippa, may have done the same by helping to design theimmense roof spans of the Odeon which he erected in Athens, and thetemple of Zeus at Heliopolis in Syria, where he had beenresponsible for a veteran colony in 14 B.C. 0

The most conspicuous examples of Imperial building activity arenaturally to be found at Rome itself. It is now clear that therewas a specialized architectural and construction team, a"Bauhiitte," work- ing directly under imperial patronage, toproduce the grandiose public works of the Flavio-Trajanic era,culminating in Hadrian's plans to restore and refurbish the gloriesof the Augustan city."1 Imperial build- ing in Rome was an aspect,and an important one, of the emperors' relationship with thecapital city and its people.12 The role of the emperors as buildersin the rest of Italy and in the provinces is hardly less clear andimportant. If the fact has received less attention, it is onlybecause the evidence is scattered and less simple to interpret. Forimperial construction projects are one of the complex of strandswhich

7 Suet. Aug. 28-29: ch. 29 and the Res Gestae 19-21 oblige witha detailed catalogue of his constructions.

8 Suet. lul. 44; Aug. 28-29; Calig. 19.1-3 and 21 (but see thecontrary, critical remarks of Josephus AJ 19.205); Claud. 20; Ner.31; Vesp. 8.5-9; Tit. 7.3; Dom. 5; HA Hadr. 19.9 ff.; Ant. 8.2-4;Sev. 23.1-2; Caracallus 9.4 ff.; Heliogab. 17.8-9; Alex. Sev. 24.3and 27.7 ff.; Gordiani Tres 32.5 ff.; Gallieni Duo 18.2 ff.; Aurel.45.2 ff.; Probus 9.3 ff. For Trajan, see Pliny Pan. 51.3.

9 HA Hadr. 19.13; Dio 69.4.2-3. 10 R. Meiggs, Trees and Timberin the Ancient Mediterranean World (Oxford 1982)

84-85. 11 See recently W. D. Heilmeyer, KorinthischeNormalkapitelle (Heidelberg 1970)

176-177. For Hadrian, see D. Kienast, Chiron 10 (1980) 391-412.12 Surprisingly, it is neglected by Z. Yavetz, Plebs and Princeps(Oxford 1969).

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336 Stephen Mitchell

linked the rulers with their provincial subjects, and it is inthis wider and different context that they take on theirsignificance.

MILITARY AND CIVILIAN BUILDING

It is convenient and conventional to distinguish between twotypes of imperial construction outside Rome. On the one hand therewas building concerned with the administration, security, anddefense of the Empire, which may be thought in some sense toreflect a centrally planned policy; on the other there wasbuilding, sponsored or encouraged by the emperors in provincialcities, of temples, bath houses, theaters, porticos, and the rest,where imperial generosity stands alongside and complements localmunificence.13 The distinction is worth maintaining, and thisarticle is principally concerned with the second category ofconstruction, but the two are not as distinct as they may at firstappear. No one will dispute that legionary fortresses, smallerforts, and other primary military installations were built as aresult of the decisions of emperors or their legates and reflecteda cen- tral policy, although we know remarkably little about thefinancing of such projects, and the cost was certainly in somecases sustained by local communities.14 The major highways of theEmpire were another military and administrative requirement, butwere largely built at local expense,15 or, to make the point morerealistically, with compulsory

13 Cf. L. Robert, Etudes anatoliennes (Paris 1938) 89 n. 2. 14Cf., for instance, the use of civilian labor in the reconstructionof Hadrian's Wall

(Roman Inscriptions of Britain nos. 1672, 1673, 1843, 1962,2022). See also MacMullen 220-221 with notes.

15 T. Pekary, Untersuchungen zur rbmischen Reichsstrassen (Bonn1968) remains by far the best treatment of the question, althoughhe hardly raises the issue of local labor, rather than localfinance, being used for road construction. See too J. and L.Robert, Fouilles d'Amyzon (Paris 1983) 30-32 on precisely thissubject, in connection with an inscription found near Magnesia onthe Maeander where the people of Amyzon were responsible for roadbuilding. They cite earlier observations of L. Robert on roadbuild- ing inscriptions with a similar sense at Trajanoupolis inThrace (Hellenica 1 [1940] 90-92), and in Macedonia (Opera MinoraSelecta [Amsterdam 1969] 1.298-300), and make the importantsuggestion that the organization of responsibilities within a givenregion might be made in accordance with the conventus divisions ofthe province. Their concluding remarks are worth quoting in full:"Certes le pouvoir central se pr6occupait des grandes routes.... Leplan d'ensemble et les directives 6manaient de Rome, empereur ougouverneur. Mais l'on voit ici que la province d'Asie avait laresponsibilit6 et c'est elle qui devait repartir les taches."

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Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman Provinces 337

local labor.16 I take it that the substantial minority of roadbuilding inscriptions which specify that construction wasundertaken by an army unit or units represent exceptions to thegeneral rule that civilian labor was normally used.17

Inscriptions frequently show that the emperor tookresponsibility for setting up fortified relay posts along theseroads for the provision and accommodation of official travellers:Nero for tabernae et praetoria on the military roads of Thrace,18Trajan and his legate for a taberna cum porticibus on the viaSebaste in South Galatia,19 Hadrian, like Augustus before him, forwells, fortlets, and staging posts on the desert road between theNile and Coptos on the Red Sea,20 and Marcus Aurelius for stabula,again in Thrace.21 We may note, however, that the task of puttingup buildings to house soldiers and officials on the move throughthe provinces, like all the other burdens which this entailed,22could be undertaken at a local level, as, for instance, by aprominent couple in the city of Arneai in Lycia who sometimebetween A.D. 112 and 117, perhaps in connection with the troopmovements of Trajan's Parthian campaign, converted a gymnasium intoa naop6otov, a rest house or mansio for official purposes.23

The labor of army personnel was naturally used for large-scalepro- vincial construction work with military overtones, such ascanal build- ing,24 but the principle of putting soldiers to workif there was no fighting to be done led to their involvement innonmilitary projects also. The Life of Probus asserts that theresults of his soldiers' con- struction schemes could be seen inmany Egyptian communities-not

16 If either the central authorities or local communitiesactually paid cash to build roads at anything like the attestedcosts of road repair, they would have been bankrupted in very shortorder. I hope to discuss the point in more detail in a book,currently in preparation, on the history of central Anatoliabetween Hellenistic and Byzantine times.

17 For such units mentioned on milestones, see most recently T.Drew-Bear and W. Eck, Chiron 6 (1976) 294-296.

18 CIL 3.6123; Dessau, ILS 231. 19 S. Mitchell, AS 28 (1978)93-98; AE 1979, 620. 20 IGR 2.1142, A.D. 137; cf. Dessau, ILS 2453for an Augustan precedent. 21 AE 1961, 318. 22 See the sketch in S.Mitchell, ed., Armies and Frontiers in Roman and Byzantine

Anatolia (Oxford 1983) 131-150. 23 IGR 3.639. 24 See thereferences collected by MacMullen 231 n. 73; cf. Dessau, ILS 9370and, a

recently published example, D. van Berchem, Rh. Mus. 40 (1983)185-196: the vexilla- tions of four legions and an auxiliary unitcombining to dig a canal near Syrian Antioch in A.D. 75.

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338 Stephen Mitchell

only irrigation for the Nile and the drainage of marshy areas,but bridges, temples, porticos, and basilicas.25 A list compiledfrom scat- tered epigraphic evidence to show military participationin civic con- struction shows that soldiers were almost as likelyto have been employed building a temple or a bath house as citywalls, towers, or gates, with the proviso that they were generallyinvolved in large-scale, not small-scale construction.26

Military expertise was even more prized than military muscle.Pliny's repeated requests for skilled architects to help in thetask of assessing the building projects in Bithynian cities were inno way unusual.27 When Ulpian defines the inspection of publicbuildings as one of a provincial governor's tasks, he indicatesthat they should, where necessary, use ministeria militaria toevaluate and assist in the completion of projects underconstruction.28 Trajan's resistance to Pliny's demands cracked whenhe was presented with the canal scheme, which was to be brought tofruition by a combination of mili- tary expertise, namely alibrator or architectus from the province of Moesia Inferior, andlocal labor.29 This was surely standard practice. A similarsituation is envisaged in the recently published imperial lettersfrom Coroneia in Boeotia, relating to the draining and canalizationof Lake Copais. The emperor Hadrian instructed a team of militaryexperts and engineers to supervise the project, and provided 65,000HS in funds, after receiving estimates of the cost of the work; theactual organization and provision of the labor was to be carriedout by the city.30 The intervention of a military expert inessentially civilian works is, of course, best exemplified by thefamous letter of the evocatus Augusti who sorted out theengineering problems of a badly surveyed water conduit through alocal mountain at the Numidian city of Saldae. Not unexpectedly hebrought in soldiers to rectify the mess, and the

25 HA Probus 9. 26 MacMullen 214 ff., especially 216 and thetable opposite 219. 27 Ep. 10.17b, 39, 41, 61. 28 Dig. 50.16.7.1.29 Ep. 10.41: hoc opus multas manus poscit. At eae porro nondesunt. Nam et in agris

magna copia est hominum et maxima in civitate. Certaque spesomnes libentissime adgressuros opus omnibus fructuosum. But if theyproved unwilling, surely a corvie would have been imposed, as forroad construction.

30 These documents, apparently first discovered in 1919,rediscovered in 1970, were finally published in 1982: J. M. Fossey,Euphrosyne 11 (1982) 44-59. The relevant letter here is no. 7 onpages 48-49 (SEG 32.460). See also the observations of L. Robert,Et. anat. 85; J. M. Fossey, ANRW 2.7.1 (1979) 568 ff.

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Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman Provinces 339

remedial excavation was carried out by competing teams ofmarines and irregular auxiliaries.31 But soldiers were also used totake charge of much more conventional constructions, like thefrumentarius of legio I Italica, stationed at Novae in MoesiaSuperior, who was given citizen- ship at Delphi in recognition ofhis scrupulous supervision of the build- ings erected there by theemperor Hadrian.32

CITY WALLS

Civilian labor and sometimes even civilian initiative, then, hada role to play in building that was essentially military incharacter, and soldiers and military experts were often prominentin civic building. The ambiguity is most obvious in the case ofconstruction in cities whose purpose was precisely the security anddefence of the Empire, as was true, in general, with theconstruction of city walls. In many cases it is clear that anemperor took direct responsibility for the fortification ofprovincial cities. Augustus is said to have provided walls andgates for Nemausus33 and Vienna34 in Gallia Narbonensis, and a walland towers for lader in Dalmatia,35 all Roman colonies, although itis interesting to note that the last were restored by a localinhabitant at a later date. In the eastern provinces there is noclear-cut evidence from the colonies. The circuit at PisidianAntioch, however, constructed in a Roman rather than a Hellenisticbuilding tradition from great blocks of ashlar with a mortaredrubble core,

surely? dates to the first years of the colony, an Augustanfoundation, and can presumably be seen as an imperialresponsibility.36 It is possible also that the unspecified operacarried out at the colony of Alexandreia Troas, iussu Augusti, byan auxiliary unit, the cohors Apula, were alsofortifications.37

Even when the emperor appears to have been principally responsi-ble for wall building there was room for private contributions. Thecities of the west coast of the Black Sea were, as Ovid knew, stillvulnerable to barbarian threats in the early Empire, andOdessus

31 CIL 8.2728; Dessau, ILS 5793; translated by MacMullen215-216. 32 L. Robert, Et. anat. 88-89. 33 CIL 12.3151. 34 E.Esperandieu, Inscriptions latines de la Gaule (place 1929) no. 263.35 CIL 3.2907; Dessau, ILS 5336; cf. CIL 3.3117 from Arca. 36 SeeS. Mitchell and M. Waelkens, Pisidian Antioch, the Site and itsMonuments, in

preparation. 37 AE 1973, 501.

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340 Stephen Mitchell

received new fortifications under Tiberius, who was hailed thereas ri(ota i;0 to watvoi 7tEpt4odXou; but a local citizen paid for astretch of

the curtain and for roofing the wall walk.38 When Rome supposedthat there was a serious Parthian threat to Syria in the 70s A.D.,defensive precautions included building walls at Gerasa, certainlyat local expense, even though the city was presumably acting underorders from Rome or the Syrian governor.39 More direct imperialintervention was simply an alternative to this, as when in A.D. 75Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian undertook the reinforcement of thewalls of Harmozica in the client kingdom of Iberia on behalf of thelocal ruler and his son.40

A few years later, during the reign of Domitian, towers,surrounding features,41 and a triple gate were erected at Laodiceaon the Lycus, and towers and a gate at its neighbor Hierapolis. TheLaodicean text sug- gests that the finance, at least, came from anImperial freedman, Ti. Cl. Aug. lib. Tryphon, apparently acting ina private capacity,42 despite the fact that the dedication of thefinished work was made by Sex. Iulius Frontinus, proconsul of Asiain A.D. 86/7.43 The proconsul himself seems to have been solelyresponsible for the construction at Hierapo- lis.44 It isimpossible to decide whether the initiative in either case lay withthe Roman authorities or with local people.

As the first signs of strain began to show themselves in thenorthern frontiers of the Empire in the second century with theMarcomannic wars of Marcus Aurelius' reign, the emperors, throughthe agency of their legates, took steps to build fortifications forthe cities of the Danu- bian and Balkan provinces-along the greathighway at Serdica

38 IGBulg. 1 (2).57. 39 G. W. Bowersock, "Syria underVespasian," JRS 63 (1973) 133-140. But the Fla-

vian date suggested there for the walls of Palmyra has beencalled into question; see J. F. Matthews, JRS 74 (1984) 161 n.13.

40 IGR 3.133; cf. CIL 3, ad no. 6032. 41 Whatever is meant bythe expression rax lEpi touig rtapyoug. 42 MAMA 6.2; for otherpublic building by imperial freedmen in the East, cf. IGR

4.228, a temple for Artemis Sebaste Baiiane in the easternTroad; IGR 3.578 (TAM 2.1.178), cf. 579, a stoa at Sidyma in Lycia;and CIL 3.7146, showing a freedman of Nerva decorating thecaldarium of the gymnasium at Tralles with marble. It is probablyno coincidence that he was a procurator of the quarries.

43 W. Eck, Senatoren ion Vespasian bis Hadrian (Munich 1970) 81n. 21. 44 Eck, Senatoren 77 ff., restoring portam et tu [rresfaciundas cu]ravit Sex. lul[i]us

Fronv[tinus procos ..i.], ilv . nA7lv K(Xit ToU; t[pYOUgExtorl']oEv Y`og ['Io]1A1to Opov[Tivo; &v01 tnXo;].

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Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman Provinces 341

between A.D. 176 and 180,45 at Philippopolis a few yearsearlier,46 at Callatis on the Black Sea,47 at Apulum in Dacia,48and at Salona in Dal- matia.49 An imperial initiative, the use ofmilitary resources, or both, is unquestionable in all these cases.This activity presages the far more widespread wall building of themiddle and later third century. The Life of Gallienus records thatthe emperor placed two of his own archi- tects, Cleodamus andAthenaeaus of Byzantium, in charge of building fortifications forthe cities of Histria and the West Pontic regions.50 The process isperhaps illustrated and paralleled by an inscription from Dera'a innorthern Arabia indicating that walls were built there in A.D.262/3 with money provided by Gallienus and with the aid of a Romanstrator and a Roman architect.5' Asia Minor was vulnerable at thisperiod to Gothic raiders and other enemies, as is reflected bywidespread, often hasty wall building. In many cases, as atDorylaeum,52 Miletus,53 and Prusias ad Hypium,54 the source offunds and the origin of the initiative are obscure. At Sardis theproconsul of Asia received the credit,55 as also happened atEphesus.56 At Ancyra an acephalous inscription, apparently set upfor a local citizen in about A.D. 260, commends him for havingrestored the destroyed gymnasium of Polyeidus and for havingcompleted the whole wall circuit from its foundation in a time offood shortage and barbarian raids;57 other texts

45 IGBulg. 4.1902; SEG 26.829. 46 IGBulg. 3.2.878; Dessau, ILS5337. 47 See D. Adamesteanu, Princeton Encyclopedia of ClassicalSites, s.v. Kallatis. 48 CIL 3.1171, built by legio XIII. 49 CIL3.1979, 6734 (Dessau, ILS 2616-2617), built by coh. I and II mill.Dalmatarum;

CIL 3.1980 (Dessau, ILS 2287), vexillations of two legionsraised by M. Aurelius; cf. Dessau ad loc. See J. Wilkes, Dalmatia(London 1969) 116-117, 225.

50 HA Gallienus 13. 5' IGR 3.1287, cf. 1286; cf. H.-G. Pflaum,Syria 29 (1952) 307 ff.; Millar, ERW 192 n.

20, 421 n. 8. The money was provided EK 58ope;xq tol LXEacCo1.52 D. Magie, Roman Rule in Asia Minor (Princeton 1950) 2.1566-1568,gives a well- documented summary of all the evidence. For Dorylaeumsee A. KOrte, Gittingische gelehrte Anzeigen 159 (1897) 391 ff.;Cox and Cameron, MAMA 5.xii-xiii.

53 Th. Wiegand, Milet 2.3 (Berlin 1935) 81 ff., 126-127. 54 W.Ameling, Epigraphica Anatolica 3 (1984) 21 n. 10; Die Inschriftenvon Prusias

17. 55 IGR 4.1510; L. Robert, Hellenica 4 (1948) 35-47; J. Keil,JOAI 36 (1948) 121-134;

C. Foss, Byzantine and Turkish Sardis (Cambridge, Mass. 1976) 3.56 J. Keil, JOAI 30 (1937) Beibl. 204 no. 10; 36 (1946) 128-129. 57IGR 3.206; E. Bosch, Quellen zur Geschichte der Stadt Ankara imAltertum (Ankara

1967) no. 289; this is almost certainly the career of a localcitizen, since he had carried out the civic office ofboulographia.

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342 Stephen Mitchell

of about the same period name both local magistrates andprovincial governors in connection with wall construction, butleave the ultimate responsibility for them uncertain.58 Theconfusion is worse at Nicaea. An inscription on the West Gatestates that the emperor Claudius Goth- icus, whose names and titlesare given in the nominative case, gave the city walls in thegovernorship of Velleius Macrinus.59 The equivalent inscription onthe South Gate implies that the walls were dedicated to theemperor, the senate, and the Roman people by the city.6 Whereas thefirst inscription taken alone unequivocally suggests directimperial responsibility and involvement, the second does not.

The picture that emerges is confusing, perhaps predictably sofor the third century, a time when, with an empire in crisis, adhoc and disparate responses might be expected both locally and inthe central administration far more than at earlier periods. Wallbuilding was always an activity of direct concern to emperors andtheir legates. Pliny, after all, was obliged to consult Trajanabout any major building project which he encountered in theprovince, and it appears later to have been standard practice toseek imperial permission for any public building in the cities.61 Arescript of Marcus Aurelius quite specifically indicates thatimperial authority had to be sought and obtained by the provincialgovernor for any city fortification.62 For all that, private orlocal civic involvement is attested from Tiberius' time to the lateEmpire, and the evidence taken as a whole suggests that cooperationbetween the imperial authorities and the local community wasprobably the norm, making it hard to offer any clear-cutgeneralizations about who was ultimately responsible either for theinitiatives or for financing them.63

58 Bosch, Ankara no. 290 [iti to) Seivo;] Toi Xajtup. 'ilyiovo;,&p?aJt~voI) [To? &Se- vo;]

oauvlwlp60avTzo; KE dptep1oavzog z r prZpoIo6T[t] TO6 Ei'Xo;,no. 291 eTti ToI

Xacnxp. I)nartoI) MtvIK(0ou) Q~4 pevzioTO zo Xplo ~pTz6TatovEpyov zfi T 6oXt yEyovEv,

nos. 292 and 293 (composite text) irni A'plk. Atovuoiou'ApyaXEvou roi T Xa~xpor6atlou Xp?a(XIvov .oKEAioZTUnlpoavxog....

59 IGR 3.39; IIznik no. 1 1. 60 IGR 3.40; IIznik no. 12. 61 Dig.50.10.3.1. 62 Dig. 50.10.6: de operibus, quae in muris vel portisvel rebus publicis fiunt, aut si

muri exstruantur, divus Marcus rescripsit praesidem aditumconsulere principem debere. Cf. Dig. 50.8.9.4.

63 In contrast, MacMullen 225 n. 24 only notes rare instances ofthe central government and municipalities jointly contributing toopera publica. See further below, nn. 89 and 141 and pages362-364.

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Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman Provinces 343

RESPONSIBILITY AND FINANCE

The inscriptions from the walls of Nicaea raise an importantprob- lem of method. The bulk of our information about imperialbuilding in the cities of the eastern part of the Empire comes frominscriptions, but it is essential to keep in mind both how littlethey may actually tell us and how misleading they can be. Forinstance, the monumental text cut above the original south doorwayof the Augustan market building at Lepcis Magna, dating to 8 B.C.,reads simply: [Imp. Caesar divi f. Augustus] cos. XI imp. XIIIItrib. pot. XV pont. m[axi]mus. If this alone survived one wouldnaturally take it that Augustus had been responsible for erectingthe building, and perhaps especially for paying for it. It isfortunate, then, that a further text from the same facade hassurvived to show that Annobal Imilchonis f. Tapapius Rufus sufesflamen praefectus sacrorum de sua pequ[nia] faciun[dum coe]ravitidem[que] de[d]icavit.64 The famous and much discussed letter ofthe proconsul Vinicius to the people of Cyme in Asia, dated to the20s B.C., gives further cause for concern. It had been ruled byAugustus and Agrippa as consuls in 28 B.C. that sacred propertywhich had fallen into private hands should be restored to itsproper sacral ownership. Vini- cius, applying the ruling to aparticular case which had arisen in Cyme, ordered that when thebuilding had been restored to the god and appropriate compensationoffered to the interim owner, a new inscrip- tion should be carved:Imp. Caesar deivei f. Augustus restituit.65 Augustus, of course,would have had nothing to do with the specific case at Cyme; stillless would he have given money towards the res- toration. Hisresponsibility was simply enshrined in the general ruling made byhimself and Agrippa. Two centuries later the city of Philadel- phiain Lydia, through its spokesman Aur,'l; l Iulianus, asked Cara-calla for the privilege of being allowed to erect a neocory templein his honor, naturally at local expense.66 The emperor's favorablereply was carved on a stone model of the temple, and the architravecarried the text 'AvTovEivo;g ' iK1 rE. The text makes Caracalla aktistes simply

64 J. M. Reynolds and J. B. Ward-Perkins, The Inscriptions ofRoman Tripolitania (London 1952) no. 319.

65 R. K. Sherk, Roman Documents from the Greek East (Baltimore1969) no. 61; H. Engelmann, Die Inschriften von Kyme, no. 13; AE1979, 596. 66 IGR 4.1619; further bibliography in S. R. F. Price,Rituals and Power. The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge1984) 259.

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344 Stephen Mitchell

because he had granted permission for the city to hold animperial neo- corate.

These examples spell out the need for caution in interpretingtexts whose meaning on the surface seems plain. As ever theformalities of public inscriptions may conceal as much as theyreveal. That said, one cannot reasonably deny that most buildinginscriptions which point to imperial responsibility ought to implysome level of financial commit- ment on the emperors' part. Whatform this took is another matter alto- gether. As Ramsay MacMullenput it, "the only method not chosen was the sending out of so manybags of actual cash to Smyrna, to Carthage or to any otherbeneficiary. With this one exception every possible kind ofarrangement was made to see that funds or credit were transferred.'"67

Even if we rule out the simple transport of hard cash, we cannotdo the same for raw materials. The emperors owned many of the majorsources of building materials in the Empire: quarries, brick kilns,forests, and mines. Antiochus III had seen to the dispatch oftimber from the forests of Lebanon to help building work atPtolemais,68 and we can surely assume that Hadrian would have donethe same after those forests, or rather four species of tree to befound there, became imperial property.69 Bricks bearing the stampof army or imperial manufacture have been found in publicbuildings, especially aqueducts, of cities close to the Rhine andDanube frontiers.70 More important, as far as the eastern citieswere concerned, were the emperors' marble quarries. At the requestof the sophist Antonius Polemo, Hadrian had supplied Smyrna with120 columns from the Synnadic quarries in Phrygia, twenty fromthose of Henschir Schemtu in Numidia, and six from MonsPorphyrites, the granite quarries of Egypt, to help build thegymnasium.71 Pausanias notes that Hadrian had also sent Athens100

67 MacMullen 210. Perhaps the anecdote in Philostratus VS 531(Keil) about Smyrna's receiving ten million drachmae in a singleday suggests that even outright cash grants were possible (I owethe point to Andrew Sherwood).

68 Meiggs, Trees and Timber (above, n. 10) 85-87; cf. a letterof Antiochus III to Sardis, giving permission to cut timber forrebuilding the city, R. Merkelbach, Epigra- phica Anatolica 7(1986) 74.

69 For the inscriptions relating to Hadrian's Lebanese forestssee J. F. Breton, Inscrip- tions grecques et latines de Syrie 8.3(Paris 1980); cf. AE 1981, 847.

70 MacMullen 231 nn. 79-80. 71 IGR 4.1431; Millar, ERW 184; cf.Pliny NH 36.102 for columns of Phrygian marble

sent to Rome to be used in the basilica of Aemilius Paullus. Onthis subject see further M. Waelkens, AJA 89 (1985) 641-653 and J.C. Fant, ibid. 655-662.

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Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman Provinces 345

columns of Phrygian marble for the temple of Hera and ZeusPanhel- lenios and 100 from Numidia for the gymnasium.72 Theprincipal imperial quarries in Phrygia, which were administeredfrom the assize center at Synnada, lay near Docimeion, and therewas an important subsidiary branch in the upper Tembris valley,south of Cotiaeum.73 Both produced a range of good quality stone,including excellent white marble and the much prized polychromepavonazzetto. The cella walls of the Hadrianic/Antonine temple ofZeus at Aezani, less than twenty miles from the Tembris valleyquarries, are made of white Docimian marble, and it is at least aplausible conjecture74 that that splendid sanc- tuary, constructedon the grandest scale, had also benefited from a direct imperialcontribution towards the cost of construction. Paving stone for thecity of Alexandria in Egypt also came from imperial quar- ries,administered by military personnel, although there is no means ofknowing whether it came as an outright imperial gift.75 From thelater Empire the Life of the emperor Tacitus indicates that heprovided an additional 100 columns of Numidian marble to the cityof Ostia,76 and Malalas states that Antoninus Pius gave stone fromthe Thebais in Egypt at his own expense to pave the streets ofSyrian Antioch, like Herod the Great before him.77

Direct or indirect financial aid was doubtless much more commonthan the provision of material. The simplest method, to judge fromthe few explicit sources, was for the emperor to remit a city'sdues to the various Roman treasuries, thereby releasing localresources for con- struction projects. Tiberius gave the twelvecities of Asia which had been devastated by the earthquake of A.D.17 five years' exemption from what they owed to the aerarium or thefiscus,78 and he later spon- sored a senatus consultum which gave athree-year remission of tribute to Cibyra in Asia and Aegeae inAchaea, which had suffered from further earthquakes in A.D. 31.79The city of Phrygian Apamea received five years' remission undersimilar circ*mstances from Claudius in A.D.

72 Pausanias 1.18.9; see below, 359. 73 Cf. M. Waelkens,"Carribres de marbre en Phrygie," Bulletin des Muskes Royaux

d'Art et d'Histoire [Brussels] 53 (1982) 33-39. 74 Made by Dr.Waelkens. 75 IGR 1.1138, A.D. 83; cf. MacMullen 231 n. 77. 76 HATac. 10.5. 77 Malalas, Chron. 280.20 ff.; cf. Millar, ERW 184 nn.65 and 68. 78 Tac. Ann. 2.47. 79 Tac. Ann. 4.13.1.

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346 Stephen Mitchell

53.80 Two-and-a-half centuries later the town of Augustodunum inGaul sent pleas to Constantine for help in repairing public placesand temples, and was granted a reduction in taxes and a remissionof those owed over the previous five years.88 The convenience ofthe system was its prime recommendation; to subvent local buildingthe emperor needed to do precisely nothing except desist fromcollecting taxes. Another point may have commended it: all thecases of imperial liberality in this form known to us were grantedin response to a peti- tion from the beneficiary. It was surelyeasier and more politic to ask for a remission of debts than for anoutright imperial grant.

Such grants were, nonetheless, common enough. Tiberius gave10,000,000 HS in addition to tax relief to the twelve earthquake-stricken cities of Asia, and Hadrian gave the same sum to Smyrnaalone, in response to the petition from Antonius Polemo, which hadalready earned the city its 126 columns of imperial marble.82 The65,000 HS that Hadrian gave for the Lake Copais drainage schemerepresents a far smaller scale of generosity,83 but Antoninus Piusgave 250,000 denarii, or 1,000,000 HS to Carian Stratonicaea inA.D. 139/40, once again to compensate for earthquake damage.84Simple financial grants probably lie behind the many buildinginscriptions from all parts of the empire recording that theemperor paid, or helped to pay pecunia sua, or impensa sua,85 or,more specifically, sumptu fisci, or impensa fisci.86

There were other more complicated modes of imperial largesse.The story of the building of the aqueduct at Alexandria Troas, toldin detail by Philostratus, shows Herodes Atticus, imperial legatecharged

80 Ann. 12.58; for Byzantium receiving the same privilege,although apparently not for the restoration of its buildings, seeAnn. 12.62.

81 Pan. Min. 7 (6) 22.4; cf. 8 (5) passim; Millar, ERW 424-425.82 Philostr. VS 1.25.531K. 83 See above, n. 30. 84 CIG 2721; M.(?etin Sahin, Die Inschriften von Stratonikaia 2.1 no. 1029;cf.

Pausanias 8.43.4, with the comments of L. Robert, BCH 102 (1978)401-402. 85 See Millar, ERW 192 n. 20, and W. Eck, BJb. 184 (1984)102 n. 23 for examples

including roads, bridges, temples, and civic public buildings,indifferently straddling the civilian/military divide.

86 CIL 3.3255 = Dessau, ILS 703 (cf. Millar, ERW 189),Constantine building baths at Reims, fisci sui sumptu; CIL 11.3309(Forum Clodii, Trajanic), quod aqu[am ... im]pensa fisci s [uiduxit]; Inscr. Lat. de Tunisie 699 (Thuburbo Maius), the proconsulof Africa of A.D. 166/7 reconstructing the capitolium publicosumptu fisci; and perhaps Eck, BJb. 184 (1984) 97 f. no. 1,Commodus restoring the praetorium at Colonia Agrippina [sumpt]uf[is]ci (?). Eck cites and discusses the parallels.

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Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman Provinces 347

with correcting the affairs of the free cities of Asia, askingHadrian on the city's behalf for three million drachmae, twelvemillion HS, to ensure a reliable water supply, on the grounds thathe had already bes- towed on mere villages many times that sum. Itis difficult not to iden- tify these "villages" with thecommunities of northwest Asia Minor promoted by Hadrian to civicstatus-Hadrianeia, Hadrianoi, Hadri- anutherae, andStratonicaea-Hadrianopolis-although we have no direct evidence ofimperial funding for these new foundations. Herodes Atticus securedthe emperor's approval and himself took charge of the work untilexpenditure reached seven million drachmae and the procurators inAsia (ofi FrxtportE1.ovrtEg) wrote to the emperor complaining thatthe tribute of 500 cities was being spent on the water supply of asingle one of them. Hadrian expressed his personal disap- proval tohis legate, who undertook that he and his son, the famous HerodesAtticus, would present the city with a sum equivalent to anyexpenditure over the original three million.87 If the episode wasaccu- rately recorded, one must surely conclude that a part atleast of the direct taxation, imperial rents, or other dues leviedfrom the province of Asia was simply being diverted to theproject.88 The procurators in Asia would surely not have had thecomposure or even the opportunity to question the emperor's rightto distribute his financial resources as he chose, unless the moneyin question directly concerned them and lay within theiradministration. There may be a parallel provided by twoinscriptions from Patara and Cadyanda in Lycia, which credit Vespa-sian with having built bath houses, the first from common funds ofthe province and the civic treasury of Patara that had been setaside for the purpose,89 the second by money that had been saved bythe emperor for the city.90 In both instances the emperor appearsto have been diverting funds normally destined for imperialrevenues to local building pro- jects. Conceivably Vespasian'sattention might have been drawn to the

87 Philostr. VS 2.1.548K. 88 Millar, ERW 199 suggests that thereference to the tribute of 500 cities might have

been a mere rhetorical turn of phrase, and need have noimplications for the actual origin of the money.

89 IGR 3.659 (TAM 2.1.396): 'K T v ouv[t]r[p]rl0V'vrt( Xpwrloy'tqwv K[otv6)v] toi

F0vo; rlvov

K(xy dun6 ofiSg fqlrxp ov nt6Xog. Cf. MacMullen 210. 90 IGR3.507 (TAM 2.1.651); cf. IGR 3.508 (TAM 2.1.652): iK t6v&vaToOivTv XpIrl-

p6urwov rf no6Xt. Cf. MacMullen 225 n. 24. Perhaps also compareIGR 3.729 (TAM 2.1.270) from Limyra.

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348 Stephen Mitchell

two cities by the mysterious circ*mstances in which he is saidto have taken away liberty from Lycia at the beginning of hisreign, thereby imposing direct taxation on most of theprovince.91

Another instance where the emperor received credit for havingdiverted revenues to subvent building occurred at Ephesus, underAugustus, where street paving was laid [iud]icio Augusti exreditibus agrorum sacrorum, quos is Dianae dedit.92 Augustus had infact redefined the territory of Ephesian Artemis to the advantageof the tem- ple revenues, but was quite prepared to spend theseadditional funds locally as he saw fit.93

Local bequests also left a mark. Pliny records the case oflulius Longus of Pontus, who had left money to a provincialgovernor, indi- cating that it should be used for public buildingsor to establish games.94 A recently published inscription fromAphrodisias in Caria shows Trajan dedicating a statue to theancestral mother Aphrodite and to the people out of a bequest madeto him by a local citizen. Later the people of Aphrodisiasre-erected the group at their own expense after anearthquake.95

Imperial funding may be well disguised. The holding of a civicmagistracy was commonly the occasion for the office holder toprovide funds for public projects. Emperors or members of theirfamilies were not infrequently appointed to municipal office, andthis might have been the occasion for transferring funds for localbuilding.96 The first major building program at the colony ofPisidian Antioch involved the

91 Suet. Vesp. 8; see the discussions of W. Eck, ZPE 6 (1970) 65ff.; Chiron 12 (1982) 285 n. 16. The question is discussed in anunpublished paper by A. Balland, kindly shown to me by W. Eck, whoargues that the "liberation" of Lycia simply amounted to itstemporary separation from Pamphylia, effected by Galba. In thatcase the speculation about the province's tax liability may bequite irrelevant.

92 IEphesos 2.459; AE 1966, 425. 93 IEphesos 7.2.3501-3502; cf.3513. For Augustus and the temple of Artemis, see

below, 354. 94 Pliny Ep. 10.75. Perhaps the testator thoughtthat there would be less risk of embez-

zlement if a provincial governor, rather than the city, was therecipient of the bequest. 95 J. M. Reynolds, Aphrodisias and Rome(London 1982) no. 55; SEG 30.1254.

Perhaps compare CIL 9.5746 = Dessau, ILS 5675. Note also PlinyEp. 10.70.2 (referring to Prusa): Est autem huius domus taliscondicio: legaverat eam Claudius Polyaenus Claudio Caesari,iussitque in peristylio templum ei fieri, reliqua ex domo locari.The house, when it was converted into a temple, would by that timehave belonged to the emperor. Who would have been deemedresponsible for the conversion?

96 W. Liebenam, Stddteverwaltung im r6mische Kaiserreiche(Leipzig 1900) 261-262; Kienast, Augustus (above, 333) 344-345.

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Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman Provinces 349

creation of a vast precinct in the center of the city devoted tothe imperial cult. It was constructed between the reign of Augustusand A.D. 50, and it is a striking coincidence that during thisperiod three members of the imperial family and two Augustangenerals held honorary duovirates in the colony; they may well havecontributed towards the construction costs.97

These few examples where something can be said about the cir-c*mstances in which imperial building in the cities was financedare far outnumbered by the cases where nothing at all is known. Butthe variety of guises in which imperial intervention andinvolvement becomes apparent is an indication in itself of thecomplexity of the relationship between the emperors and theirsubject cities. The evi- dence for imperial building reflects notonly the rulers' generosity, but also the diverse and numerous waysin which they were seen to take responsibility for provincialaffairs.

CRISIS, PETITION, AND RESPONSE

In 27 B.C. an ambassador from the city of Tralles, which hadbeen devastated by an earthquake, came to Augustus, then oncampaign in Spain, to ask for aid. The emperor dispatched acommission of seven consulares, who made haste to the city andprovided large sums of money, from which Tralles was rebuilt in theform which it still exhi- bited in the sixth century, when theepisode was recalled by the Byzan- tine historian Agathias.98 WhenMithridates VI passed through Phrygian Apamea, in ruins after anearlier earthquake, he gave 100 talents towards its restoration asAlexander the Great was alleged to have done before him.99 Thepattern of natural disaster, petition, and imperial response recursthroughout the principate, and precedents had been set longbefore.

Tacitus remarks with some surprise that Laodicea on the Lycusmanaged to recover from the earthquake of A.D. 60 at its ownexpense, with no help from Rome,1' and many individual episodesconfirm that Laodicea's recovery was exceptional. Augustus in theRes Gestae

97 Mitchell and Waelkens, Pisidian Antioch (above, n. 36)chapter 1. 98 Agathias Hist. 2.17; cf. Strabo 12.8.18.578,indicating that Laodicea on the Lycus also benefited.

99 Strabo 12.8.18.578. 100 Ann. 14.27: eodem anno ex inlustribusAsiae urbibus Laodicea tremore terrae pro-

lapsa nullo a nobis remedio propriis opibus revaluit.

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350 Stephen Mitchell

catalogued the gifts (8op~at) he had made to provincial citiesthat had suffered from earthquake or fire.1'0 A decree of Cos,found at Olym- pia'02 and dating to 26 B.C., hailed him as newfounder of the city after a catastrophic earthquake there.103Suetonius remarked that the great disaster of A.D. 17, which hadruined twelve cities of Asia,'4 had been the only occasion whenTiberius showed liberality to the provinces,'05 although the aidwhich he provided was substantial and was widely advertised bothlocally'06 and in Italy.'07 At Sardis, Tiberius' own con-tributions were matched by local benefactors,'08 and this too was acommon pattern. Tiberius gave tax relief to Cibyra in Asia andAegeae in Achaea a few years later,109 but the full-scalerestoration of the former did not occur until the beginning ofClaudius' reign, when the first governor of the new province ofLycia, Q. Veranius, was honored there for having taken charge ofthe Sebasta erga, the imperial build- ings, in accordance withinstructions confided to him by Claudius, founder of the city.110But alongside this we may note that a certain Q. Veranius Troili f.Clu. Philagrus is also said to have provided a sub- stantial sumfor the foundation of the city on his own account.111' No doubt thegovernor Veranius had encouraged private generosity to sup- plementimperial funds, and Roman citizenship may well have been

101 19.7-9. 102 lOlympia no. 53; R. Herzog, Koische Forschungenund Funde (Leipzig 1899)

141-150. 103 See L. Robert, BCH 102 (1978) 401. 104 See TacitusAnn. 2.47, with Goodyear's note for further references. 105 Suet.Tib. 48. But note the contrary indication of Velleius 2.130.1:quanta suo

suorumque nomine exstruxit opera, with Woodman's note. 106 InAsia the relevant inscriptions are as follows: Sardis, IGR 4.1514,cf. 1503 and

1523, and an unpublished text found recently, JHS Arch. Reports1984/5, 82; also see n. 108; Cyme, Die Inschriften von Kyme nos.20-21; Mostene, IGR 4.1351 (OGIS 471); see L. Robert, Hellenica 2(1946) 77-79; 6 (1948) 16-17.

107 See the coins, RIC 1, 105 no. 19: CIVITATIBUS ASIAERESTITUTIS; CIL 10.1624 (Dessau, ILS 156), Puteoli, with thecomments of C. C. Vermeule, "The Basis from Puteoli," in Coins,Culture and History in the Ancient World, Studies for Bluma C.Trell (Detroit 1981) 85-101.

10o L. Robert, BCH 102 (1978) 405 (SEG 28.928), for the privaterestoration of a temple after this earthquake. For the rebuildingof Sardis, see G. M. A. Hanfmann, Sardis from Prehistoric to RomanTimes (Cambridge, Mass. 1983) 140-143.

109 Tac. Ann. 4.13. 110 Petersen and van Luschan, Reisen inLykien 2 (Vienna 1889) 189 n. 25; IGR 4.902.

For Q. Veranius at Cibyra, see L. Robert, Et. anat. 89;Hellenica 3 (1946) 21 n. 1; J. Noll6, ZPE 48 (1982) 267-282.

Ill IGR 4.914.

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Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman Provinces 351

Philagrus' reward for his contribution. Claudius was againactive after the earthquake which struck the central region ofAegean Turkey in A.D. 47. At Samos he repaired the temple of LiberPater and was hailed as vog; Kitrlg,112

and Malalas makes him responsible for res- toration at Miletus,Ephesus, and Smyrna.113 This intervention also prompted privategenerosity, for this seems to be the context in which Cn. VergiliusCapito of Miletus, sometime procurator of Asia and pre- fect ofEgypt, began his building program at Miletus, which produced thebaths of Capito at the end of Claudius' reign, and, according to aseductive restoration, the scaena of the theater, dedicated toNero.114

Nero had given Lugdunum in Gaul a sum of 4,000,000 HS to rebuildafter a fire in A.D. 66, in return for help which Lugdunum hadoffered to Rome at the time of the great fire of A.D. 64;115Vespasian intervened in response to petitions in Lycia;116 andHadrian is said to have rebuilt Nicomedia and Nicaea in Bithyniaafter the earthquake of A.D. 120-both took the title "Hadriane" inconsequence.117 A Hadri- anic inscription from Nicaea set up for acertain Patrocleus, who had been an imperial procurator and heldhigh local office, states that he had been curator of theconstruction work in accordance with a rescript of the emperor,8"presumably an allusion to the aftermath of the same earthquake.

In A.D. 139 another Koa?oKobg GE;Etog struck Lycia and the sur-rounding cities as far away as Carian Stratonicaea,"19 Rhodes, andCos,

1 2 Ath. Mitt. 1912, 217 nos. 19 and 20; M. Sagel, InscriptionesLatinae in Graecia Repertae (Faenza 1979) 19 ff. no. 11; IGR4.1711; and a newly published Greek text, H. Freis, ZPE 58 (1985)189-193.

113 Malalas, Chron. 246, 11 f.; C. Habicht, Gittingischegelehrte Anzeigen 213 (1960) 163. Miletus probably took the titleCaesarea for a short period, acknowledging Clau- dius' restoration,see L. Robert, Arch. Ephem. 1977, 217-218.

114 For Vergilius Capito at Miletus, see L. Robert, Hellenica 7(1949) 206-238, esp. 209; for the baths of Capito, see A. vonGerkan and F. Krischen, Milet 1.9 (Berlin 1928) 23-49; theinscriptions from the baths are published by A. Rehm, ibid. 158.The inscrip- tion from the scaena of the theater is published by P.Herrmann in W. Mtiller-Wiener, ed., Milet 1899-1980. Ergebnisse,Probleme und Perspektiven einer Ausgrabung (Tiibingen 1986)175-189. Vergilius Capito's name was restored with splendid acumenby D. McCabe in a seminar at Princeton in 1984.

'15 Tac. Ann. 16.13. 116 See nn. 89-91. 117 Sources anddiscussion in L. Robert, BCH 102 (1978) 395 ff. I I IGR 3.1545;Dessau, ILS 8867; S. Sahin, Die Inschriften von Nikaia 1.56. 119See n. 84.

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352 Stephen Mitchell

all of which received help in rebuilding from Antoninus Pius,120but this was also the occasion for enormous generosity throughoutLycia by Opramoas, the millionaire of Rhodiapolis.121 In A.D.151/2, during the proconsulate of L. Antonius Albus, it wasMytilene's turn to suffer. The city responded to the emperor'scontributions to the reconstruction by hailing Antoninus Pius asits benefactor and founder.122 The plight of Smyrna in A.D. 172 isstill better documented, by Philostratus and by the letter ormonodia which Aelius Aristides sent to Marcus Aurelius,successfully urging him to contribute heavily towards therestoration of the smitten city.123

PULCHRUM ET UTILE

Pliny's appeal to Trajan on behalf of his canal scheme hadpleaded a combination of splendor and utility to attract theemperor's attention to it. On both counts there was a chance thatTrajan might respond favor- ably, since both qualitiestraditionally provided opportunities for imperial generosity.

Aqueducts were one of the most distinctive architecturalfeatures of Roman cities, whether in the eastern or western partsof the Empire. They were expensive to build, as Hadrian discoveredat Alexandria Troas, and their construction, which required highlyaccurate surveying and sophisticated building techniques such asthe use of pressure pipes, demanded considerable expertise.Moreover, the point has been made that their location outside theircities did not make them a favorite choice for local aristocratsanxious to display their generosity to their fellow citizens. Smallwonder, then, that they often received imperial subvention.Augustus built aqueducts at Ephesus, between A.D. 4 and 14,124 andthe canalized system from Schedia to Alexandria in Egypt in

120 Robert, BCH 102 (1978) 401-402; D. Magie, Roman Rule in AsiaMinor 1.631-632; 2.1491-1492 n. 6; Pausanias 8.43.4; Aristides Or.24.3.59; 25.9 ff. (Keil); HA Ant. 9.1.

121 For Opramoas' restoration program, see TAM 2.3.905 (IGR3.739), 11.20 f.; 12.28 and 43; 13.48; 17.27 f.; 18.85 f.; A.Balland, Xanthos 7, nos. 66 and 67. There is a con- venient list ofhis benefactions in T. R. S. Broughton, "Roman Asia Minor," in T.Frank, ed., An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome 4 (Baltimore 1938)780.

122 IGR 4.90; IG 12.11.215. Cf. Aristides Or. 49.38 ff. (Keil).123 Dio 71.32.3; Philostr. VS 2.9; Aristides Or. 19 (Keil). Cf.Millar, ERW 423-424. 124 Die Inschriften von Ephesos 2, no. 401(the aqua lulia), 402 (the aqua Thrassitica);

cf. W. Alzinger, Augusteische Architektur in Ephesos (Vienna1974) 23; RE Suppl. 12.1604.

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Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman Provinces 353

A.D. 10--11.125 Tiberius, through the agency of his legate, sawto the building of an aqueduct at Syrian Nicopolis,126 whileClaudius built examples at Sardis,127 at Namasba in Numidia,128 andperhaps at Ker- yneia in Cyprus.129 There was a Neronian aqueductat Soloi in Cyprus,130 and Vespasian seems to have beenparticularly active in improving the water supplies of Lyciancities, with an aqueduct at Patara'31 and baths at Patara andCadyanda.132 Coulton notes that the Patara aqueduct, the aqueductand a bath house at Oenoanda, and another bath house at Simena, allshare the same distinctive style of polygonal masonry, which mayhelp to date them to the same period.133 Although there is noevidence that it is an imperial foundation, one should also notethe aqueduct at Balbura, dedicated to Vespasian and Titus in A.D.75.134 Trajan provided aqueducts for colonies in the Bal- kans, atlader in Dalmatia135 and at Sarmizegethusa.'36

According to the Historia Augusta, Hadrian gave his name toinnu- merable aqueducts.137 Perhaps not, but Hadrianic work isknown for certain at Athens, Argos, Corinth,138 and at Nicaea.139At Lepcis Magna an inscription tells us that Hadrian aquaeaeternitati consuluit, but that the money was put up by a localcitizen, Q. Servilius Can- didus.140 Some such collaborationbetween emperor and subject should perhaps be envisaged at Cyrenein A.D. 165/6, where the city built hydrecdochia out of publicfunds, under the guidance of the provincial

125 Dessau, ILS 9075. 126 CIL 3.6703. 127 CIL 3.409; IGR 4.1505;Sardis 7.1 (1932) no. 10. Perhaps part of the restoration of

Sardis occasioned by the earthquake ofA.D. 17; cf. Hanfmann(above, n. 108) 141-142. 128 CIL 8.4440 (Dessau, ILS 5793),referring to an aqua Claudiana. 129 T. B. Mitford, Opusc. Athen. 6(1950) 17 no. 9. 130 Ibid. 28 no. 15. See G. Moretti, RFIC 109(1981) 264-268. '31 J. Coulton, PCPS N.s. 29 (1983) 9, cf. n. 28,citing an unpublished text. 132 Above, nn. 89-90. 133 Coulton, loc.cit. 134 IGR 3.466; C. Naour, Anc. Society 9 (1978) 165-170 n. 1(SEG 28.1218). 135 CIL 3.2902. 136 CIL 3.1446. 137 HA Hadr. 20.5.138 CIL 3.549; J. Travlos, A Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Athens(London 1971) 242,

built between A.D. 125 and 140. See, too, A. Kokkou, Arch. Delt.25 (1970) 150-172. For Corinth and Argos see below, nn. 195-197. Italso seems to be implied at Coroneia (cf. above, n. 30), SEG32.460.1.10-11:

KaTr Eo 8 314E1V Ka'i iS0op.

139 Die Inschriften von Nikaia 1, no. 55. 140 Dessau, ILS 5754;Reynolds and Ward-Perkins, Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania

no. 358, cf. 359.

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354 Stephen Mitchell

proconsul, but in accordance with the authority and benefactionof the divine emperors. 141

Hadrianic building for public utility is also illustrated by thetwo horrea erected in Lycia in A.D. 129, the year in which hevisited the province, at Patara, and at Myra,142 both designed tostore grain from the Lycian hinterland that was destined forconsumption at Rome.143 They may be paralleled by the granarieswhich he built at Smyrna in response to the embassy of Polemo.'44We should compare not only his interest in the drainage of LakeCopais in Greece, but his concern to clear the harbors of Ephesusand Trapezus in Pontus.145

Imperial prestige, at least, was no less well served by other,more decorative forms of building. The edict of Paullus FabiusPersicus, issued at Ephesus under Claudius in A.D. 47, recordedthat since many of the temples of the gods had been consumed byfire, or lay in ruins, Augustus had intervened to restore thetemple of Diana itself, an orna- ment to the province on account ofthe magnificence of its workman- ship, the antiquity of its cult,and the extent of its revenues.146 Indivi- dual texts show thatAugustus restored roads and water courses,147 and built a wallaround the Artemisium in 6/5 B.C.,148 as well as re- establishingthe boundaries of the temple lands and ordering the paving of roadsfrom its revenues.149 The magnificence of imperial contribu- tionsto the architecture of Ephesus is implied by a civic decree ofDomitianic date which begins with the remark that the restorationof old buildings appeared to match the recent splendors of imperialcon- structions, a reference perhaps to Augustan work, or to thenewly built Flavian temple of the imperial cult.150 Augustus wasprobably equally

141 J. M. Reynolds, JRS 49 (1959) 98 f. no. 3; for an aquaAugusta at Cyrene, restored by a proconsul in the late Augustan orTiberian period, see AE 1981 no. 858.

142 CIL 3.12127; TAM 2.397 (Patara); CIL 3.6738; Dessau, ILS5908 (Myra); cf. M. Worrle, in J. Borchhardt, Myra. Eine lykischeMetropolis (Tiibingen 1975) 67-68.

143 Cf. Borchhardt et al., Myra, 66-71 Taf. 36-41 for the Myrabuilding. Recent discus- sion in G. Rickman, Roman Granaries andStore Buildings (Oxford 1971) 136 n. 41; A. Balland, Xanthos 7.69and 217.

'44 Philostr. VS 1.25.531K. However, it seems that the Smyrnabuilding was for civic use, and can be paralleled by other largegranaries found in Asian cities.

145 Cf. above, n. 30; Ephesus, SIG3 839; Trapezus, Arrian,Periplus 1.16. 146 IEphesos 1.19b (Latin text). 147 IEphesos6.1523, cf. 1524. 148 IEphesos 6.1522 (CIL 3.6070; 7118; Dessau,ILS 97). 149 See above, nn. 92-93. 150 IEphesos 2.449 (SEG26.1245); cf. L. Robert, Rev. Phil. 52 (1977) 13-14, possibly

referring, however, not to Augustan buildings but to theDomitianic temple of the imperial cult. Cf. Price, Rituals andPower (above, n. 66) 255.

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Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman Provinces 355

active in another conspicuous center, Athens, although thedirect evi- dence for his financial involvement is confined to oneinscription from the architrave of the gate of Athena Archegetis inthe Roman agora.151

Temple building or reconstruction was a regular imperialactivity in the provinces, as it was at Rome or in Italy. Abilingual inscription set in bronze letters on the architravesuggests that Augustus had rebuilt the Hellenistic temple of Athenaat Ilium, perhaps fulfilling the obliga- tions of the Julian houseto the city of its Trojan ancestors.152

A text from the Letoon at Xanthos, dating to A.D. 43, the yearin which Claudius annexed Lycia, seems to show that he himselferected a temple-like structure within the precinct there, whichserved the imperial cult.153 Nero is said to have had a bath housebuilt in Egypt, anticipating his projected visit;154 he was alsoresponsible for the stage of the theater at Curium in Cyprus155 andprobably for the proscenium of the theater at Iconium inGalatia.156 Later in the first century A.D. the seating was addedby private donors.157 A doubtful but probably reli- able sourceindicates that Vespasian built an "imperial hall" at Cyz- icus. 58Domitian restored the temple of Apollo at Delphi in A.D. 84 suaimpensa159 and, presumably in response to a petition, erected aportico at Megalopolis in the Peloponnese after it had been burneddown.160 A fragmentary Latin text from Palaepaphos in Cyprus alsoseems to show

151 IG 2/3.3175; see Kienast, Augustus (above, 333) 356-357 fordiscussion and further references.

152 P. Frisch, Die Inschriften von Ilion no. 84. 153 A. Balland,Xanthos 7, no. 11. 154 Dio 62.18; A. C. Johnson, "Roman Egypt tothe Reign of Diocletian," in T. Frank,

ed., An Economic Survey of Ancient Rome 2 (Baltimore 1935) 637.155 T. B. Mitford, The Inscriptions of Kourion (Philadelphia 1971 )no. 107, A.D. 64/5. 156 IGR 3.262.1404; restored by W. M. Ramsay,JHS 38 (1918) 169-170. The Neronian

date is supported by the fact that the procurator Pupius namedin the building inscription is apparently identical to theprocurator L. Pupius Praesens, honored as benefactor and founder atIconium, whose term of office fell at the end of Claudius' and thebeginning of Nero's principate. See R. K. Sherk, ANRW 2.7.2 (1980)977-978.

157 IGR 3.1474. '58 Schol. in Aristidem (1.391, 7 Dindorf),discussed by B. Keil, Hermes 32 (1897) 502

n. 1, and mentioning a pacallto; awrXi. 159 CIL 3.14203.24;Dessau, ILS 8905. 160 CIL 3.13691; IG 5.2.457, A.D. 93/4. CompareAntoninus Pius repairing burned bath

buildings at Narbo, Dessau, ILS 5685.

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356 Stephen Mitchell

that he undertook construction or restoration in the precinct ofAphro- dite.161

Between A.D. 98 and 100 Trajan built, or rather completed, abath building at Cyrene,162 and patronized the important sanctuaryof Apollo Hylates at Curium, where he founded (Krt~aev) two thenunfinished exedrae, work which was supervised and dedicated by theproconsul in A.D. 101.163 In the same or the following year hebuilt the gate of the sanctuary that led to the city of Curium, andanother adjacent struc- ture.164 Another Latin inscription fromCurium, perhaps of the first cen- tury A.D., records an imperialgift of paving stone,165 and Trajan was again responsible forlaying paving in the sanctuary in 113-115.166 It is interesting tonote this very specific, piecemeal approach taken to sup- plementthe existing, much more impressive buildings at the sanctuary. Weknow that in A.D. 102 Trajan was responsible for benefactions atMiletus: he paid for the repaving of the sacred way which joinedthe city to the shrine of Apollo at Didyma, and possibly undertookother building there. He may have had specific reasons for beinggrateful to the place. The oracle at Didyma had apparentlypredicted his future elevation to the principate, perhaps duringhis father's term as procon- sul of Asia in A.D. 79.167 Suchspecial connections might always be a cause for imperialintervention. When sudden death overtook Marcus Aurelius' wifeFaustina at the village of Halala in the northern foothills of theTaurus mountains in A.D. 176, the emperor turned the little com-munity into a Roman colony, Faustinopolis, and built a temple inFaustina's honor.168

This evidence forms no observable pattern. We are faced with therandom survival, principally from inscriptions, of informationindicat- ing that emperors erected buildings of all sorts ineastern provincial cities. They provided the emperor's subjectswith further testimony to his ubiquitous power and the benefitswhich he could bring them.

161 CIL 3.12102, cf. Mitford, ANRW 2.7.2 (1980) 1356. 162Reynolds, JRS 49 (1959) 95 f. no. 1. 163 IKourion no. 108. 64IKourion no. 109.

165 IKourion no. 106. 166IKourion no. 11; cf. T. Drew-Bear andR. S. Bagnall, Chron. d'Egypte 49 (1974)

193-195. 167 C. P. Jones, Chiron 5 (1975) 403-406; K. Tuchelt,Ist. Mitt. 30 (1980) 102-121;

JHS Arch. Reports 1978/9, 73-74. 168 HA M. Aurel. 26.4; for thesite of Faustinopolis, see M. H. Ballance, AS 14 (1964)

139-145.

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Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman Provinces 357

However, the work that the emperors funded or patronized was notin principle distinguishable from other constructions in thecities. Tem- ples, bath houses, porticos, theaters, and evenaqueducts might as well be set up by private benefactors, or by thelocal civic authorities. There was no imperial policy to endowcities with structures or facilities that they might not otherwisehave enjoyed.

HADRIAN, ATHENS, AND ACHAEA

The sum total of the evidence for other imperial building ineastern cities pales into insignificance when set alongside thesurviving tes- timony to Hadrian's apparently spontaneousgenerosity. This is emphasized by the principal literary sourcesfor his principate, and confirmed by inscriptions.

He did not, Dio tells us, wait to be asked, but gave generouslytowards any need, helping both allied and subject cities withunsparing generosity. He visited many of them in person, more thanany other emperor, and gave aid to almost all. Some received awater supply, others harbors, grain, public buildings, cash, orprivileges.169 In partic- ular, Dio observes that he conferredgreat honor and benefits on his home town Italica in Baetica, andarchaeology confirms that the place was transformed from a modestprovincial town by a wealth of imperial construction.170 The Lifeof Hadrian noted temples connected with the imperial cult inNarbonensis and Tarraconensis,171 as well as buildings atAthens.172 When he went to Asia he is said to have con- secratedtemples devoted to his own cult,173 and he built innumerableaqueducts.174 In almost every city that he visited he either put upbuild- ings or sponsored games.175 A host of cities took his nameand were called Hadrianopolis, including a part of Athensitself.176

169 Dio 69.5.2-3. 170 69.10.1; R. Syme, Roman Papers (Oxford1979) 1.620-621 citing A. Garcia y Bel-

lido, Colonia Aelia Augusta Italica (1960). 171 HA Hadr. 12.2.172 13.6, see below. 173 19.1. 174 20.5. 175 19.2. Cf. FrontoPrinc. hist. 8 (p. 195.13-14 van den Hoot) eius itinerum monu-

menta videas per plurimas Asiae atque Europae urbes sita. 17620.4; cf. 20.13 on Hadrianutherae.

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358 Stephen Mitchell

The inscriptions suggest that little exaggeration is involved.Cities of Asia by the dozen took a name or titles from him, andhonored him as their ktistes.177 Specific texts show that inaddition to the horrea at Lycia, aqueducts, and the restoration ofBithynian cities after earth- quake damage which have already beendiscussed (above, 345), he built a stoa (?) at Apollonia on theRhyndacus,178 restored the temple of Dionysus at Teos,179 anderected a temple or some similar structure at Metropolis inIonia.180 According to Philostratus he lavished ten mil- liondrachmae in a single day on the city of Smyrna, which built withthis bounty a grain market, the finest gymnasium in Asia, and atem- ple.181 But even this was dwarfed by his gifts to Athens andto the other cities of Achaea. According to Dio he gave money, anannual supply of corn, and the island of Cephallenia to Athens. Healso built the Olympieion, and caused the Greeks themselves to putup the Panhellen- ion and celebrate games there.182 It was not newor surprising that an emperor should make benefactions to Athens.Hadrian was neither the first nor the last in a long series.183 TheOlympieon itself had been begun by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, built toa design by a Roman archi- tect, Cossutius, but by his death in 165B.C. only the east end had reached the level of the cornice.184 Itsurvived the depredations of Sulla, who carted off some of itscolumns to Rome;'85 Augustus had planned to continue the work,186but completion had to wait for Hadrian between 124/5 and 131/2.187Pausanias provides the fullest details: Hadrian dedicated thetemple and the splendid statue of Zeus,

177 See the lists compiled by M. Le Glay, BCH 100 (1976)357-364. 178 IGR 4.121. 179 SEG 2.588; BCH 00 (1925) 309 no. 4; L.Robert, Hellenica 3 (1946) 86-89 (ITeos

[McCabe] 76). 180 IEphesos 7.1.3433; J. Keil and A. vonPremerstein, Dritte Reise 111 no. 174 refer

this inscription to road building between Metropolis andHypaepa, but it is puzzling, if that is so, that the text, withname and titles of Hadrian in the nominative, should be carved on arectangular stele with a pediment, not on a normal milestone.

181 Philostr. VS 531K. 182 Dio 69.16.1-2. 183 For Herod theGreat, see above, n. 5. M. Agrippa had built an ambitiouscovered

theater, the Odeon, Pausanias 1.18.6; Hesperia 19 (1950) 31-161;Travlos, Pictorial Dic- tionary (above, n. 138) 505-520. The kingswho built in Athens include Ariobarzanes of Cappadocia and theemperors Augustus and Claudius.

184 Vitr. 7.15.17; IG 22.4099. 185 Pliny NH 36.45. 186 Suet.Aug. 60. 187 Travlos, Pictorial Dictionary 402-411.

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Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman Provinces 359

and adorned the precinct with four statues of himself, two ofThasian marble and two of Egyptian granite.'88 Pausanias alsoobserves, in apparent conflict with Dio, that Hadrian also builtthe temple of Hera and Zeus Panhellenios, with a new sanctuary ofall the gods, these with 100 columns of Phrygian marble (see above,344). Then there was his library, with colonnades and stoas, whosechambers had gilded roofs and were adorned with statues andinscriptions, to say nothing of the books, and the gymnasium namedafter Hadrian and built with a further 100 columns from theNumidian quarries.189 The monuments, of course, are still to beseen in Athens.190 A fragmentary letter preserves some of the termsin which he presented Athens with the gymnasium: "I give thisgymnasium for your boys and young men, so that it may be anadornment to the city . 1.." 191 An arch was constructed linkingthe new Olympieion complex with the old classical city. Theinscription on the east side, overlooking the new temple, told thepasserby that this gate led to the city of Hadrian, not that ofTheseus.192

Hadrian's treatment of Athens goes far beyond that of any otheremperor for a provincial city at any time during the principate.Ties of sentiment, religion, and an acute sense of the culturalsignificance of Athens motivated the gifts, and provide a rationalefor Hadrian's com- mitment. The Panhellenic movement which hefostered and encouraged required a capital city and a central focuswhich his rebuilt Athens provided.193

But it is important to note that his philhellenic endowments didnot stop there. There were new buildings at Delphi.194 At Corinthhe built the aqueduct from Stymphalus, and a bath house which wasdoubtless associated with it,195 and restored the theater.196 Thisgenerosity was almost exactly duplicated at Argos, where he endoweda new aqueduct

188 1.18.6. 189 1.18.9. 190 For the library see Travlos, op.cit. 244-252; M. A. Sisson, PBSR 11 (1929) 50-72;

Knithikis-Symbolidou, Arch. Delt. 24 (1969) 107 ff. 191 IG 2/3(ed. min.) 1102 (A.D. 131/2). For royal gifts to gymnasia, see L.Robert,

Opera Minora Selecta (Amsterdam 1969) 2.738. 192 IG 22.5185;Schol. Aristides, Panath. 3.201.32 (Dind.); M. Zahrnt, Chiron 9(1979)

393-398. 193 See now A. J. Spawforth and Susan Walker, JRS 75(1985) 78-104, especially 90 ff. 194 See above, n. 32. 195Pausanias 2.3.5; 8.22.3; W. Biers, Herperia 47 (1978) 171-184. 196R. Stillwell, Corinth II: The Theatre (Princeton 1952) 136-140.

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360 Stephen Mitchell

and nymphaeum and restored the theater which had burned down.197He rebuilt the temple of Poseidon Hippios at Mantinea in thePelopon- nese,198 a temple of Apollo at Abai, and a colonnade atHyampolis in Phocis,199 to say nothing of the utilitarian scheme todrain Lake Copais.200 He made the corniche road from Corinth toMegara wide enough for two wagons to pass one another, and rebuiltthe Megarian temple of Apollo in white marble, replacing theexisting one of brick.201 Achaea, notoriously, had been in declinein the early imperial period, a fact as evident to ancientobservers as to modern scholars.202 It is surely correct to seeHadrian's efforts as a genuine, almost a planned attempt to restorethe province to its former glory. Some confirmation that thisinterpretation is not an anachronism comes from Pausanias' remarkabout Megara, that of all the cities of Greece not even Hadrian'sendeavors sufficed to make it thrive.203 If construction work andpublic buildings are any clear measure of regional prosperity, thenAchaea in the second century had much for which to thank him.

CITY FOUNDATIONS AND ECONOMIC REVIVAL

In A.D. 66 Tiridates, newly crowned king of Armenia by Nero,returned to his domain with permission to rebuild the city ofArtaxata, which had been destroyed by Domitius Corbulo eight yearsearlier. He took with him gifts to the value of 200,000,000 HS204and assorted arti- sans to help with the task, some hired byhimself, others provided by the emperor. When he reached theEuphrates, Corbulo allowed him to

197 See A. J. Spawforth and Susan Walker, JRS 76 (1986) 102. 198Pausanias 8.10.2. 199 Pausanias 8.35.3, 4. 200 See above, n. 30.201 Pausanias 1.42.5; cf. IG 7.70-74. 202 C. P. Jones, Plutarch andRome (Oxford 1971) 3-12, esp. 8; see U. Kahrstedt, Das

wirtschaftliche Gesicht Griechenlands in der Kaiserzeit (Berne1954) passim; J. A. O. Larsen, "Roman Greece," in T. Frank, ed., AnEconomic Survey of Ancient Rome 4 (1938) 465-483.

203 Pausanias 1.36.3. Note also the phrase which begins one ofthe Hadrianic letters from Coroneia: ait6tq yi o4LnpdPoTyTv taTqn;heotCv npbq Enopifv XprtjgArmv (SEG 32.461; A.D. 125).

204 The figure is astonishingly high. Note also that Tiridates'entourage of more than 3000 persons, which had taken over ninemonths to travel to Rome for the coronation, at an alleged cost tothe Roman treasury of 800,000 HS per day, will have required afurther 220,000,000 HS (Dio 62.2.2). Hardly credible.

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Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman Provinces 361

take only the latter group beyond the imperial frontier, butwith them he rebuilt his capital, and called it Neronia.205 Thisepisode, although concerned with a client king in extra-provincialterritory, gives much cause for reflection. It highlights the scaleof imperial generosity, which took the form both of financial andof practical aid, and provides a rare fragment of substantialinformation to supplement the bare state- ment that a city took ona new dynastic name. It also offers a simple reminder that thefoundation or refoundation of a city was a major and expensiveundertaking, a fact generally taken for granted and so passed overin silence both by the ancient sources and in moderndiscussions.

This is not the place to begin a large-scale discussion of acompli- cated subject which goes well beyond the scope of thisarticle. It goes without saying, however, that the creation of newcities had widespread and profound implications for the economicdevelopment of the pro- vinces, and it is legitimate to ask whetherthe emperors saw imperial building as an essential component ofcity foundation and a means or spur to regional development. Theevidence for direct financial com- mitment on the part of theemperors in the foundation or refoundation of cities which boretheir names is disappointingly thin. It is clearest, perhaps, inthe case of cities rebuilt after earthquake damage, all or most ofwhich took an imperial name or title to commemorate the fact.206The passage of Philostratus which describes Hadrian's role inbuilding the aqueduct at Alexandria Troas may, if rightlyinterpreted above (346), indicate that he spent large sums on thecreation of his new Mysian cities. But the only direct evidencefrom the region also implies a subtler and less direct approach tocivic development. Hadrian's letter to Stratonicaea /Hadrianopolisof A.D. 127 includes an injunction concerning the house belongingto Ti. Cl. Socrates--either he should put it into good repair, orhe should give it to one of the local inhabitants so that it not bedestroyed by the passage of time and by neglect.207 This hints at amore complex process, involving imperial, local civic, and privateinitiatives working together, and tends to confirm the picturewhich has already emerged from the testimony for

205 Dio 62.6.5-6; 7.2 (epitomized). 206 Tralles, Cibyra, and thetwelve cities of Asia ruined in A.D. 17 all took the nameCaesareia; Nicaea and Nicomedia both took the title "Hadriane"after A.D. 120.

207 IGR 4.1156; reedited by L. Robert, Hellenica 6 (1948) 81-84no. 26. For the same idea, cf. the SC Hosidianum, perhaps ofClaudian date, CIL 10.1401; Dessau, ILS 6403 (Italy); Suet. Vesp.8.5 (Rome); P. Garnsey in M. I. Finley, ed., Studies in Roman Pro-perty (Cambridge 1976) 133-136.

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362 Stephen Mitchell

earthquake restoration at Sardis, Cibyra, and Miletus in themid-first century A.D. (above, 350-351).

The same point can be made about any wider policy on Hadrian'spart to create urban structures in Mysia. Alongside the directimperial subvention that presumably took place in the newly foundedcities, there was Hadrianic building at the Asclepieon of Pergamum,paid for by private donors,208 at Cyzicus where the famous templewas paid for by contributions from all over Asia,209 and at Aezani,cities which framed the vast Mysian hinterland where the newfoundations lay. Not only within the confines of a single city, butalso on a broad regional scale, imperial building did not takeplace in a vacuum. Private and civic munificence provided anecessary complement to it. We should probably not try to read intothese imperial benefactions a complex and consciously devisedscheme of economic regeneration, but certainly all parties musthave been aware that regional prosperity was much enhanced by thesemajor initiatives in public building.

Another region at another period may be compared, the centralAna- tolian province of Galatia, created by Augustus in 25 B.C. Atthe time of annexation there was not a single community in thewhole area that could be described as a polis. This deficiency wasput right over the next hundred years, as a network of cities,colonies, and their territories spread over the provincial map in aprocess of urbanization that was essentially complete by theFlavian or Trajanic period.210 The archaeo- logical evidence forthe area is still very inadequate, but what we know from theprincipal cities and colonies shows that these urban founda- tionswere matched by the erection of public and religious buildings ofconsiderable splendor. A program of construction which began underAugustus and continued through to the Claudian period produced thetemple of Rome and Augustus and a theater at Ancyra, the firstphase of the colonnaded street, which did double duty as a watercourse and ran through the center of the city, the imperial templecomplex at Pes- sinus, and the monumental temple and precinct ofthe imperial cult at Pisidian Antioch.211 It is hard to imagine howsuch ambitious programs

208 C. Habicht, Alt. v. Perg. 8.3 (1976) 8-11; Le Glay, BCH 100(1976) 347-351. 209 IGR 4.140; Malalas, Chron. 279.3 f. indicatesthat Hadrian himself helped with the

cost. For an excellent summary of the many problems concernedwith this building, see Price, Rituals and Power (above, n. 66)251.

210 To be discussed in the book referred to in n. 16. 211 Seethe summary of recent work at all these sites in JHS Arch. Reports1984/5,

98-100. For Antioch, see S. Mitchell, AS 33 (1983) 8 and 34(1984) 9; Pessinus, M. Waelkens, Fouilles de Pessinonte 1 (1984)140. The Pessinus evidence and the com-

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Imperial Building in the Eastern Roman Provinces 363

of public building could have been possible without a deliberateinjec- tion of imperial finance, and without importing the skilledcraftsmen and artisans that such sophisticated constructionsrequired. Imperial intervention in the province during theJulio-Claudian period is directly attested by an inscription fromIconium and there is a possibility that imperial funds werechanneled into Antioch when members of the imperial family heldmagistracies there.212 On the other hand the only direct evidencefor the funding of the Ancyra and Pessinus imperial sanctuariessuggests that the provincial priests of the imperial cult wereexpected to contribute, in the usual traditions of aristocraticmunificence. Pylaemenes, son of the last Galatian king, Amyntas,pro- vided the site where horse racing and a panegyris took place,and where the Sebasteion itself was built, while two of hissuccessors were credited with paying for imperial statues at Ancyraand Pessinus respectively.213 In the precisely comparable case ofBritain, Tacitus tells us that the high priests of the temple ofthe deified Claudius at Camulodunum were forced to pour out alltheir wealth to maintain the cult, one of the main causes ofgrievance that led to the uprising of Boudicca.214 Once again itseems prudent to assume that Julio- Claudian building in the newlyfounded Galatian cities was subvented by a combination of imperialpump-priming and local efforts, forced or spontaneous.

Here as elsewhere the picture of imperial building th