The Civic World of Profesional Associations in the Roman East 9050632572, 9789050632577

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THE CIVIC WORLD OF PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS IN THE ROMAN EAST

DUTCH MONOGRAPHS ON ANCIENT HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY EDITORS

H.W. PLEKET

- F.J.A.M. MEUER

VOLUME XVII ONNO M. VAN NUF THE CIVIC WORLD OF PROFESSIONAL AS SOCIATIONS IN THE ROMAN EAST

ONNO M. VAN NIJF

THE CIVIC WORLD OF PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS IN THE ROMAN EAST

J.C. GIEBEN, PUBLISHER AMSTERDAM 1997

No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. ©by O.M. van Nijf, 1997 / Printed in The Netherlands I ISBN 90 5063 257 2

To M. van Nijf and W.A.B. van Nijf-Spalink

CONTENTS Acknowledgements........................................................................................................... iii Introduction....................................................................................................................... 3 Faces in a crowd ................................................................................................... 3 Private associations ............................................................................................... 5 Collegia in a comparative perspective .................................................................. 11 Epigraphy and history ........................................................................................... 23 1: Funerary activities of professional associations in the Roman East. ............................ 31 Introduction ........................................................................................................... 31 The funerary activities of collegia ........................................................................ 38 Conclusions........................................................................................................... 68 2: The honorific practices of private associations ............................................................ 73 Introduction........................................................................................................... 73 With a little help from their friends: the material benefits of patronage .............. 82 Fashioning authority and identity: the symbolic meanings of honorific practices ................................................................................................................ 111 Conclusions........................................................................................................... 127 3: Reading Ancient Festivals ............................................................................................ 131 Introduction........................................................................................................... 131 Private clubs and public festivals ......................................................................... 137 Economic time and festive time ........................................................................... 139 4: Collegia and public commensality ............................................................................... 149 Introduction........................................................................................................... 149 Collegia in public banquets and distributions in the Roman East.. ...................... 156 Conclusions........................................................................................................... 187 5: Professions on parade ................................................................................................... 191 Introduction........................................................................................................... 191 The participation of private associations in civic processions.............................. 195 Private associations and imperial ceremonies ...................................................... 201 Conclusions ........................................................................................................... 205 6: Seats and civic memory ................................................................................................ 209 Introduction........................................................................................................... 209 Collegia and seating orders in the provinces ........................................................ 216 Conclusions........................................................................................................... 239

ii

Conclusions ....................................................................................................................... 243 Appendix 1: I. Histria 57................................................................................................... 251 Appendix 2: Collegia in Public Commensality in the West ............................................. 253 Appendix 3: Collegia in Public Commensality in the East.. ............................................. 255 Appendix 4: Seats for collegia in the Roman Empire ...................................................... 257 Appendix 5: Roman auditoria ........................................................................................... 261 Bibliography...................................................................................................................... 273 Index Locorum .................................................................................................................. 291 Epigraphical index ................................................................................................ 293 Papyrological index............................................................................................... 303 Literary and biblical index .................................................................................... 304 Legal index ............................................................................................................ 305 General Index .................................................................................................................... 309

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is a pleasure to acknowledge my debts to various people and institutions

without whose help I would never have completed, or even begun my research. This book is a slightly modified version of my dissertation which was submitted to the University of Amsterdam in 1996. The research was carried out as a Graduate Student at Churchill College Cambridge, as a member of the British School at Athens, and as an Assistent in Opleiding (Research Assistant) at the University of Amsterdam. The dissertation was finished while I was a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Classics and Ancient History in Bristol, and the book was finally completed while I was a Leverhulme Research Fellow at the Faculty of Classics in Cambridge. Such geographical mobility has only been possible thanks to the generosity of a number of institutions. I want to express my gratitude to: the British Council, Amsterdam; Churchill College, Cambridge; the Faculty of Classics, Cambridge; 'de Faculteit der Letteren', University of Amsterdam; 'de Faculteit der Letteren', University of Leiden; 'de Fundatie van de Vrijvrouwe van Renswoude', The Hague; 'Dr. Hendrik Mullers Vaderlandsch Fonds', The Hague; and 'de Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek', The Hague. The Arts Fund of the University of Bristol made a generous contribution towards the completion of the manuscript. I would like to express my gratitude to the staff at the libraries of the Faculty of Classics in Cambridge, and the British School at Athens, who have made, and continue to make, working there a great pleasure. I have been extremely fortunate with the advice that I received over the years from supervisors, colleagues and friends. I want to express my enormous gratitude to Prof. H.W. Pleket and Dr. P.D.A. Garnsey who have supervised my dissertation at all stages in varying capacities. They have been major sources of inspiration, model supervisors, generous with their time and encouragement, and, most of all, critical readers. The late Prof. P. J. Sijpesteijn, who was my co-promotor in Amsterdam, read my dissertation with characteristic meticulous care and interest. This book owes much to their efforts, enthusiasm, and support. I am grateful for the help I received from teachers, colleagues, and friends, many of whom read and commented on the entire book, or on parts of it. I would like to thank: Alexandra Alexandri, Ilias Amaoutoglou, Prof. J.-M. Bremer, Riet van Bremen, Paul Cartledge, Jan-Paul Crielaard, Keith Hopkins, Birgit van den Hoven,

iv Vedia Izzet, Valerie Huet, Willem Jongman, Fik Meijer, Neville Morley, Henrik Mouritsen, John Patterson, Joyce Reynolds, Hans van Rossum, Johan Strubbe, Henk Versnel, Sofia Voutsaki, and Dick Whittaker. I am very grateful to Miss Reynolds for giving me access to unpublished epigraphic material from the excavations in Aphrodisias under the direction of the late Prof. K.T. Erim, and Prof. R.R.R. Smith, who also granted permission to use the photograph on the jacket. Prof. P. Herrmann kindly allowed me to make reference to unpublished inscriptions from the theatre in Miletos. Prof. J. Andreau, Ilias Arnaoutoglou, Prof. J.-M. Bremer, Henrik Mouritsen, and John Patterson have shown me articles in advance of publication. The final version of my text owes a great deal to Rosamund Annetts who has not only improved my English, but who has also repeatedly made me reformulate what I really thought. Sue Grice has produced the illustrations at the back. My greatest debts, however, are closer to home: Sofia Voutsaki has lived with this book as long as the author himself. She has been a constant source of support, inspiration and incisive criticism. I cannot begin to sum up what I owe to my parents: this book is a present for them. Cambridge, 4 November 1997.

INTRODUCTION ARTISANS, ASSOCIATIONS AND EPIGRAPHY IN GRAECO-ROMAN CITIES

INTRODUCTION ARTISANS, ASSOCIATIONS AND EPIGRAPHY IN GRAECO-ROMAN CITIES FACES IN A CROWD Most histories of the Roman Empire have been written from the point of view of its major beneficiaries: the senatorial, equestrian and local elites. These were the authors of the majority of the literary texts on which our historical narrative has been based, and unsurprisingly they are also its principal heroes. Both ancient writers and modem historians have paid rather less attention to homines tenuiores, the 'rather thin men' who were in the majority in the city of Rome and in the provincial towns. I We sometimes meet them in historical texts, their paths briefly crossing those of the elite protagonists of ancient history, but they are rarely named, and usually appear as two-dimensional characters. Literary authors tended to describe craftsmen and traders in stereotypes; they took them for granted and considered them of little or no account. One reason for this near silence was the value system of the elite, who (despite the occasional local councillor who can be shown to have made his fortune in trade or by the exercise of his craft) found little to admire in trade and commerce, and condemned the banausic crafts as sordid and unworthy of a free man. 2 It has been argued that elite views of this sort were dominant, and persuasive to

individuals outside the elite, 'because the lower classes were not sufficiently reflective or articulate to criticise them or to substitute something different'.3 As a result, no 'popular literature' emerged from the social strata beneath that occupied by the elite to present the less elevated group with a positive self-image. The attitude expressed by the sophist and writer Lucian of Samosata in Syria probably represents the thoughts of almost any potentially upwardly mobile individual. Apprenticed as a youth by his parents to a sculptor Lucian quickly realised that 4 lcf. Syme (1984), 390. 2For the negative attitudes of the elite towards work and towards those who had to work for a living, see e.g. Finley (1985) and Pleket (1983 b). Meijer and van Nijf (1992), 3-20 contains a selection of relevant texts. 3Brunt (1973). 4Lucian Somnium 1.8. He puts these words into the mouth of a dream figure (Paideia) who, he claims, spoke to him on the second day of his apprenticeship.

Introduction

4

if you become a sculptor you will be nothing more than a workman, doing hard physical labour, putting in it your entire hope of a livelihood; you will be obscure, earning a small wage, a man of low esteem, classed as worthless by public opinion, neither courted by friends, feared by enemies, nor envied by your fellow-citizens, but just a common workman, a face in the nameless crowd.5 You will always give way to your superiors, depending on those who have the power of words ...

As so often, although education provided Lucian with the means of social mobility, his education did not encourage him to formulate a positive account of the views and ideologies of men from a social background similar to his own, instead resulting in his warmly embracing elite culture and social values. Not unlike Lucian, modern ancient historians have in the past frequently adopted the point of view of their more articulate sources. Many, however, would now agree that there is a need for an alternative to this 'top person's history'.6 It may be that few ancient historians will feel able to follow the example of the historian of the lower classes in early modern England who made this classic declaration of empathetic intent:7 I am seeking to rescue the poor stockinger, the Luddite cropper, the 'obsolete' hand-loomweaver, the

"utopian" artisan ... from the enormous condescension of posterity.

Some effort must nevertheless be made to recover something of the experience of the ordinary men and women who lived and worked in the towns and cities of the Roman provinces. Valuable attempts to reconstruct their way of thinking have been made using unusual forms of evidence such as the manuals of dream interpreters and astrologers, s but these are still texts written by members of the upper classes, mainly for the consumption of their social equals. 9 They do not represent the 'unmediated voice' of the greater part of the population of a Roman city. 10 If we want to avoid the elite viewpoint, if we want to assess how the 'rather thin men' of Roman provincial

5-rwv EK Tou rro>..Aou 8tjµou els.

6cf. Sharpe (1991), 25. 7Thompson (1968), 12. Ssee the use made of Artemidorus and other dream interpreters in studies by Pomeroy (1991) and Klees (1990). Astrologers' manuals are discussed by MacMullen (1971) and Barton (1994), esp. ch. 6. Hopkins (1993) employs another unusual source, the Vitae Aesopi, in reconstructing the slave's experience of Roman slavery. 9Pomeroy ( 1991) is more optimistic. He assumes that the dream interpreters who constituted Artemidorus' intended readership were of only 'slightly' higher status than their clients (members of the plebs media in Roman towns). This may be true, but it certainly does not apply to Artemidorus himself. tocf. Joshel (1992).

Introduction

5

cities defined themselves and how they perceived their own role in society, we must change tack. PRIVATE ASSOCIATIONS We must begin by admitting the severe difficulty of finding out much about the lowest strata of Roman provincial society: the really poor. Beggars and poor peasants never left many traces. 11 We fare better with people of rather higher status, the ordinary citizens who formed a sizeable proportion of the urban populations of the Roman provinces. These are the authors or subjects of large numbers of inscriptions, particularly epitaphs, many of which have survived to the present day. The information supplied by these texts is, however, limited. The deceased is ordinarily represented only as an individual, located at best within his or her family. Fortunately, the sociability of the craftsmen and traders who made up a large part of the urban populations was not limited to the family workshop. Many of them were members of collegia, private associations of a (more or less overtly) professional character which were important foci of lower and middle-class sociability, providing links between work, family life and urban society as whole. Associations of this sort have left more traces of their activities than have individuals, especially in the form of inscriptions. It is therefore by studying these associations and their epigraphic record that I shall attempt to reconstruct something of the historical experiences, expectations and aspirations of the social groups ranking beneath the elite in the Greek cities of the Roman empire. The historiography of collegia

More than a century has passed since Mommsen established that private collegia were a subject worthy of serious historical investigation.12 They have, however, remained on the whole marginal to the interests of most ancient historians, and most studies of them have been characterised by a formal-institutional and antiquarian approach, 13 which moreover has tended to focus on Italy and the western half of the

lief. Whittaker (1989). A recent trend towards archaeology-intensive field survey has increased our knowledge of the poor peasants considerably. Even survey archaeology, however, tends to bring out systems, general developments and long-term patterns. It is less successful in bringing to life 'the individual event, the unique place and the particular relationship': Alcock (1993), 34. 12Mommsen (1843). l3for a similar observation on the study of medieval and early modern guilds, see Lis and Soly (1994), 7.

6

Introduction

Roman Empire.14 A first wave of collegium studies was sparked off in latenineteenth-century Germany (and in neighbouring countries) by the publication, under the direction of Mommsen, of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, which for the first time made systematic study of this disparate material possible. The course of this study was shaped by contemporary concerns, in particular the burgeoning of the German 'biirgerliche Vereinsbewegung', which stimulated research into Roman collegia as well as into medieval guilds, inviting explicit comparisons between the two. 15 The works of Liebenam, Ziebarth and Poland are among the studies produced by this school, 16 The tradition culminated in Waltzing's Etude historique sur Les corporations professionelles chez Les Romains, which has remained the most influential study of the subject and has never been replaced as a source of information. 11 Despite its obvious merits, reviewers pointed out some limitations: 18 ... if the merit and completeness of the discussion be adequate to the scale on which it has been undertaken ... the only function left to an inquirer into the nature of the Roman guilds will be that of conjecture, no doubt a valuable function but one from which the exigencies of his present task have compelled our author to abstain. If such a thing as over-sobriety be possible we may justly charge him with it. It is almost painful to see what a wealth of evidence is required to lead to attenuated, sometimes negative and always accurate conclusions, how manfully the attractions of analogy are resisted and how frankly the insignificance of the objects of this world-wide association is expressed; for, if these conclusions are final, the Roman guild is not a very valuable contribution to the social, political or economic history of the world. The drift of the whole work is to show that through the greater part of their history, from the earliest times to the close of the middle empire, they were working men's clubs and notking more.

A second tradition, which began in fascist Italy between 1927 and the Second World War, resulted from a fascination with the imperial Roman past as well as from an interest in historical models for corporate organisation of labour by the state. Since the war interest in Roman collegia has remained high in Italy, resulting in studies by i.a. De Robertis, Clemente and Cracco-Ruggini. 19

14For historiographical surveys, see Cracco-Ruggini (1971), 59-64 and Ausbiittel (1982), 11-15. 15Ausbiittel (1982), 12. Cf. Dann (1986). 16Liebenam (1890), Ziebarth (1896) and Poland (1909). 17Waltzing (1895-1900). 18Greenidge (1896). 19De Robertis (1963) and (1971); Clemente (1972); Cracco-Ruggini (1971), (1973) and (1976).

Introduction

7

Apart from these there are remarkably few modern studies of collegia. The only general survey was made by Ausbtittel, who limited himself to the Italian evidence.20 His main contribution to the subject is a critical reappraisal of modern terminology (he argues, for example, that we ought not to speak of collegiafuneraticia); his main conclusions about the activities of collegia do not, however, go much further than W altzing's. Roy den's recent book on the magistrates of Roman collegia is useful, but severely limited in scope: it is essentially a list of the magistrates of collegia of fabri in Italy, showing that most members were not of free origin, which may have been true of urban populations as a whole.2 1 The collegia of Republican and early Imperial Italy have been investigated by Flambard with particular attention to their political importance and funerary activities.22 Of more recent date are the excellent studies by Patterson, whose contribution has been to show how crucial collegia were to the urban structures of early Imperial Italy. 23 These historiographical traditions have produced an approach to collegia which is often one-sided and unsatisfactory. The main emphasis has been upon describing systematically the formal characteristics of collegia, and upon examining their legal position and their relationships with the Roman state.24 Except recently by Patterson, little or no attempt has been made to reconstruct the social world of Roman collegia, or to interpret their activities in the context of urban life. 25 From my point of view, the main problem with most of these studies is that they are based predominantly on material from Italy and the Latin West, largely ignoring evidence from the eastern provinces, which is admittedly much less accessible.26 As a result, there has been a

20 Ausbiittel (1982). 21 Royden (1988). 22See Flambard (1977), (1981) and (1983) for their political role; Flambard (1987) for funerary activities. 23Patterson (1993) is a study of the funerary activities of Italian collegia. Patterson (1994) discusses the transformation in the urban structures of second-century AD Italy by investigating the roles of civic benefactors and private collegia. These studies were preceded by an unpublished paper on wider aspects of collegium life in Italy. 24Cf. Levi (1985), 559: 'I collegia sono stati studiati ampiamente ... ma sempre nelle loro strutture, nel loro funzionamento, nei rapporti di diritto pubblico, privato e sacro, nella funzione economica: mai come sintomo di variazioni nei rapporti politici e di potere, negli aspetti ideologici e funzionali dell'arrichimento e dell'ascesa politica e sociale.' 25Cf. De Ste. Croix (1981), 597, quoting with approval the remarks ofM. Rostovtzeff on the subject: 'The treatment of the corporations in existing works is wholly inadequate, being merely systematic and not historical.' 26Waltzing (1895-1900) III, pp. 17-79, lists fewer than 300 examples for the entire Roman East. Poland ( 1909) offers a slightly longer list, but is difficult to use; the papyrological evidence up to 1912 can be found in San Nicolo (1972). All are, of course, out of date.

Introduction

8

tendency to underestimate the role of collegia in the cities of Asia Minor and Greece under Roman rule. 21 The associations of the Greek East did not, of course, spring into existence ex nihilo, although Waltzing suggests that professional associations were a conscious

innovation, imported by the Romans together with their own political institutions.28 The Greek world had a long and rich tradition of associations, considered by various scholars to have been a defining characteristic of the Greek way of life. 29 The earliest of these associations appear to have been centred around cults. Among the most common forms of association we find orgeones, the oldest name for private associations. Organisations of this sort were centred on cults, and were of a local nature; their members were usually citizens. The term thiasotai denotes associations of worshippers; these were more open, and often contained both citizens and foreigners. Eranistai appear to have been of a more social character: they were associated with mutual assistance, but cult activities still took place. The numerous associations of worshippers of certain gods, groups whose names end in -stai (e.g Aphrodeisiastai, Hermaistai etc.), were most frequently found in international

trading centres such as Peiraieus, Delos and Rhodes. Their members were often foreign traders, although citizens were to be found among their number. The terminology applied to the various types of association appears to have been far from fixed. They were usually multifunctional, and the boundaries between different types were not rigid.30 It is striking, however, that associations defined (primarily) by professional activities appear at a relatively late stage, their advent being roughly contemporary with the establishment of Roman rule over the Greek poleis. Even the associations of foreign traders in the Hellenistic trading centres preferred to take cult form and theophoric names, revealing the sort of self-identification that was most important to them. 31 27 E.g. Clemente (1972), 157: '. .. ii fenomeno associativo nelle province orientali non poteva avere un'incidenza nel contesto sociale assimilabile a quella de! parallello fenomeno in occidente.' 28Waltzing (1892), 349. 29Cf. Tod (1932), 71. This has long been one of the very few studies in English of Greek associations, but see now Arnaoutoglou (1993) and (forthcoming) on religious associations. The main studies are Poland (1909) and Stockle (1924), which is based on Poland. There have been some studies of private associations in Graeco-Roman Egypt, based on papyri. At the beginning of this century San Nicolb published a narrowly legalistic but systematic survey of the various types of association and their internal organisation in Graeco-Roman Egypt, which was re-published with minor additions as San Nicolo (1972); cf. also Preaux (1948). A recent study by Brashear, despite its promising title (Vereine im griechisch-romischen Agypten ), is essentially an edition of a small papyrus from the year 5 BC recording a decree by an imperial-cult association: Brashear (1993). 30cf. Arnaoutoglou (1993), 364. 31Davies (1984), 283.

Introduction

9

The Greekfenomeno associativo has been interpreted in terms of its importance within the kosmos of the Greek city state, the term sometimes being extended to include the associations of foreign traders in the Hellenistic ports of Rhodes and Delos. Private professional associations in Greek cities under Roman rule have never been the centre of attention in this sort of study. The most important recent contributions to the study of professional associations in Roman Greece and Asia Minor are to be found in a book on the wider subject of Roman social relations,3 2 and in a study of contests and festivals in Late Antiquity.33 MacMullen's study casts a keen and lively eye upon the surface of the social world of the Roman city. His main theme is the importance of collegia as a focus of sociability, and as one of the many units that made up the plural societies of the Roman empire, but he makes many other valuable observations along the way. The even shorter survey of professional associations in Roueche's study of seating arrangements in the stadium, theatre and odeion of the Carian city of Aphrodisias briefly discusses the main functions of associations, making the valuable observation that they were increasingly important as a source of (civic) identity for the groups inferior to the elite. Excellent though these works are, neither offers a systematic study of the activities of collegia in the Roman East. A comprehensive study of private associations in the Greek city of the Roman period, then, remains a desideratum, especially as the epigraphic documentation has increased significantly over the years since Waltzing's and Poland's time, making it very hard for one individual to oversee the entire field. 'Il fenomeno associativo'

In this study I shall frequently use 'collegium' (without italics) as a general term for the various forms taken by private sociability in Graeco-Roman cities.3 4 This may suggest a higher degree of uniformity, formal regulation and clarity of purpose among the groups concerned than is warranted by the evidence. The ancient terms for private associations were extremely varied,35 and although earlier scholarship frequently sought to make precise distinctions between various types of association on the basis of the terms used to describe them, such efforts seem to me essentially

32MacMullen (1974), ch. 3, esp. pp. 68-80. 33Roueche (1993), ch. 7, esp. pp. 121-128. 34J shall use italics wherever I am dealing with specific Latin terminology (e.g. in legal texts). 35Cf. the lists in Waltzing (1895-1900) IV, 1-242 (particularly the summary on pp. 236-242); Poland (1909), 5-172.

Introduction

10

misguided. Ancient associations were often described by their members in varying terms, suggesting that precise terminology was not a priority. A good example of the problems that can result from an anachronistic insistence upon assigning formal characters to different types of name can be found in the terminological overlap between orgeones, thiasotai and eranistai in Athens and other cities during the Hellenistic period. 36 Another example is offered by Saittai 's association of linenweavers, which appears to have been known both as a synergasia (the name used in six surviving funerary inscriptions)37 and as a homotechnon38, both names referring to occupational identity. This association is also, however, described as a plateia (emphasising its territorial basis)39, and perhaps as a phyle, referring to the political status of its members. 40 An association of porters in Tarsos is referred to in the same inscription as the Servants of Demeter but also as a sacred syne rg ion. Other inscriptions, moreover, seem to refer to the same association as the 'synergion of the porters in the grain market.'41 Earlier scholars studying collegia in the West also made efforts to distinguish types of collegia firmly from one another on the basis of their activities. The most familiar result of this is the belief, widespread since Mommsen, that it is possible, at least in Italy, to distinguish a special (legally recognised) category of collegia funeraticia. 42 We shall see below in the chapter on funerary practices that this 'category' is a modem invention, created by isolating and giving undue emphasis to what was undoubtedly an important function of all ancient associations. Recent studies have rejected this schematic (a-prioristic) type of analysis in favour of a more

36Cf. in last instance Arnaoutoglou (1993) and Arnaoutoglou (1994). 3 7 ~uvEpyaaia Twv A.Lvoupywv: SEO 29, 1191; SEO 31, 1036; SEO 32, 1234; SEO 40, 1088; TAM 5.1, 83 and TAM 5.1, 84. 3s·oµoTExvov Twv A.Lvoupywv: TAM 5.1, 82. 39fTA.aTE'ia Twv A.Lvoupywv: SEO 31, 1026. 40¢uA.~ A.Lvoupywv: Cf. Kolb (1990). 41 Cf. Robert, Hellenica 7, 197-205, esp. pp. 201-202; AJA (1938), 55-57 (Broughton), and SEO 27, 947. The terms are: ti.T'jµT]Tpos 0EpcirrovTES", lEpov auvepywv and To auvepywv Twv E:v Tij aEL nKij wµcxf>opwv. 42Tue use of Latin terms may give the impression that we are here dealing with authentic Latin terminology. These terms were, however, coined by Mommsen, who wrote his dissertation in Latin. Ausbiittel (1982) discusses the two texts on which Mommsen based his terminology: Dig. 47.22.1 (for collegium tenuiorum) and CIL 14, 2112 (for funeraticium). He successfully challenges Mommsen's reading of the inscription and thereby eliminates collegia funeraticia as a specially chartered category. The idea that special burial clubs existed never gained much ground amongst students of the Roman East. Cf. Poland (1909), 56, 503; Fraser (1977), 60; Ausbiittel (1982), 59.

Introduction

11

global approach to the fenomeno associativo in Italian cities. 43 Flambard has described the situation in Italy thus: 44 On ne peut determiner,

a premiere vue, quel aspect l'emporte dans un college romain: ... Une

ecrasante majorite de collegia mele inextricablement: -des donnees professionelles (individus pratiquant un meme metier OU des metiers apparentes, quoique certains colleges admettent en leur sein des individus exercant des professions differentes); -des donnees territoriales (Jes collegae sont souvent des vicini plus ou moins proches, habitant un meme quartier); -des donnees religieuses: nos statistiques sont assez grossieres, puisqu'elles se fondent le plus souvent sur des dedicaces a des divinites particulieres ou sur Jes theonymes portes par Jes colleges, ce qui ne prejuge en rien de l'appartenance religieuse de chacun des membres pris individuellement. On ne constate neanmoins que !es collegae partageaient souvent !es memes convictions religieuses et qu'ils pratiquaient Jes memes cultes, avec des variantes a apprecier dans chaque cas d'espece; -des donnees funeraires: Jes collegia, quelle que soit leur "dominante", s'ils en ont une, se chargent, dans Jes plupart des cas, des obseques de leurs adherents; -des donnees conviviales, enfin, puisque, dans tous !es cas, la grande preoccupation de collegiati consiste en diverses festivites et reunions communes.

In other words, we should beware of reducing Roman associations to a single one of their various activities. It seems appropriate to extend this approach to the study of collegia in the Roman East. However, we must first take a look at some comparative approaches to the nature of ancient collegia, and especially to their relation to their medieval successors: were collegia comparable with guilds, or were they not? COLLEGIA IN A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE A striking feature of certain modern approaches to ancient collegia has been the adoption of an explicitly comparative perspective, measuring the achievements of collegia - especially in an economic sense - against those of medieval guilds. The result of this sort of comparativism has often been that collegia have been defined negatively - that is, according to what they have failed to become. 45 The role of collegia in the ancient city is seen as having been of little or no importance in

43FJambard (1987), Ausbiittel (1982) and Patterson (1993), 20. The tenn 'fenomeno associativo' is borrowed from De Robertis (1971). 44FJambard (1987), 210. 45for Finley's tendency to define the ancient economy as a whole according to 'what it was not', see Pleket (1990 b), 32 sqq.

12

Introduction

comparison with that of guilds, and the actions of collegia are considered as more or less irrelevant to the historical developments that really mattered. The comparative basis of this value judgement is, however, questionable, as modern opinion concerning the importance of medieval and early modern guilds is not straightforwardly positive. Lis and Soly have recently argued that the received opinion about guilds among modern historians has been that their role was not particularly important in the greater scheme of things; they quote the French historian Le Roy Ladurie:46 Les actes qui comptent se produisent ailleurs.

Although they make a case for a different approach to guilds, one recognising their importance as a major form of lower-middle-class sociability, they do not appear to want to return to the view that guildsmen were the economic masterminds of a medieval commercial revolution. Since the views of ancient historians about the relative importance of collegia were based upon this assumption, however, it will be useful briefly to reconsider some aspects of the traditional view. The economic activities of collegia and guilds

An influential, though brief, example of this comparative approach can be found in Finley's work on the ancient economy. Finley contrasts the pluriform socially and culturally embedded collegia of the Roman Empire with medieval guilds that acted as rational agents in the sole pursuit of economic self-interest: 41 ... it seems commonly overlooked that the excavators of Tarsus have found no Cloth Hall, that all ancient cities lacked the Guildhalls and Bourses which, next to the cathedral, are to this day the architectural glories of the great medieval cities of Italy, France, Flanders, the Hansa towns, or England. Contrast the Athenian agora with the Grande Place in Brussels. It was no oversight on the part of Pausanias when he omitted that class of buildings from his sneer about the little town in Phocis ... Not only were there no Guildhalls in antiquity, there were no guilds, no matter how often the Roman collegia and their differently named Greek and Hellenistic counterparts are thus mistranslated. The collegia played an important part in the social and religious life of the lower classes, both free and slave; they sometimes performed benevolent functions, as in financing burials; they never became

46Quoted by Lis and Soly (1994), 8. 47 Finley (1985), 137-138. Cf. also ibid. p. 195: ' ... there were no guilds in antiquity ... The second point follows from the first, namely, if there were no guilds there were a fortiori no Guildhalls, no Clothhalls, and further no Bourses, no Exchanges.'

Introduction

13

regulatory or protective agencies in their respective trades, and that, of course, was the raison d'etre of the genuine guilds, medieval and modern.

Elsewhere he concludes emphatically:48 It still remains true, and demanding an explanation, ... that the guild was an integral element in the medieval city, but not in the ancient.

Although for some cities there may be some truth in Finley's distinction between guilds and collegia, it is nevertheless important to see this contrast in its proper perspective, especially as the differences may have been rather less than Finley makes them out to be. It is worth having a closer look at some of the evidence for the economic activities

of ancient collegia. A clear example of a professional collegium defending its economic self-interest is provided by the ordinances of the salt-dealers of Egyptian Tebtunis, which are worth quoting in full because they clearly contradict Finley's statement that ancient collegia 'never became regulatory or protective agencies in their respective trades':49 The seventh year of Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus Imperator, the twenty-fifth of the month Kaisareios. The undersigned men, salt-dealers of Tebtunis, meeting together have decided by common consent to elect one of their number, a good man, Apunchis, son of Orseus, both supervisor and collector of the public taxes for the coming eighth year of Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus Imperator, the said Apunchis to pay in all the public taxes for the same trade coming year, and [they have decided] that all alike shall sell salt in the aforesaid village of Tebtunis, and that Orseus alone has obtained by lot the sole right to sell gypsum in the aforesaid village of Tebtunis and in the adjacent villages, for which he shall pay, apart from the share of the public taxes which falls to him, an additional sixty-six drachmas in silver; and that the said Orseus has likewise obtained by lot Kerkesis, alone to sell salt therein, for which he shall likewise pay an additional eight drachmas in silver. And that Harmiusis also called Belles, son of Harmiusis, has obtained by lot the sole right to sell salt and gypsum in the village of Tristomou also called Boukolou, for which he shall contribute, apart from the share of the public taxes which falls to him, five additional drachmas in silver; upon condition that they shall sell the good salt at the rate of two and one-half obols, the light salt at two obols, and the lighter salt at one and one-half obols, by our measure or that of the warehouse. And if anyone shall sell at a lower price than these, let him be fined eight drachmas in silver for the common fund and the same for the public treasury; and if anyone of them shall be found to have sold more than 48Finley (1981), 17. 49Cf. Finley (1985), 138. The text: P. Mich. 5, 245, cf. van Minnen (1988), 64ff.

14

Introduction

a stater's worth of salt to a merchant, let him be fined eight drachmas in silver for the common fund and the same for the public treasury; but if the merchant shall intend to buy more that four drachmas worth, all must sell to him jointly. And if anyone shall bring in gypsum and shall intend to sell it outside, it must be left on the premises of Orseus, son of Harmiusis, until he takes it outside and sells it. It is a condition that they shall drink regularly on the twenty-fifth of each month each one chous of beer ... in the village one drachma, outside four drachmas, and in the metropolis eight drachmas. But if anyone is in default and fails to satisfy any of the public obligations, or any of the claims that shall be made against him, it shall be permissible for the same Apunchis to arrest him in the main street or in his house or in the field, and to hand him over as aforesaid.

This is a rich text, but what interests me most is that this association was clearly attempting to act as a cartel: its members allocated trading areas amongst themselves, set minimum prices, and made special arrangements so that any sales to outside merchants would be dealt with by the association as a whole. Unfortunately we have no good ancient parallels for this text. The price declarations from fourth-century Oxyrhynchus are not strictly comparable with it.50 These texts do not decree minimum prices to be kept to by collegium members, but rather give lists of actual market prices, drawn up for the information of the government. The fact that collegium officials were able to quote single prices for trade items, however, strongly suggests that some form of co-operation, some form of collective price-setting, must have existed between the members of the various collegia. A late Roman law prohibits the practice of price-fixing, implying that certain professional groups were ready to try their hand at it if they could. s1 These last examples bring us well outside the chronological limits of this study, but there is more evidence to show that economic self-interest was sometimes on the minds of members of the professional associations of the early empire. A text from Smyrna, although unfortunately too much damaged to be clear in every detail, provides an example of a price war (probably combined with actual violence) intended to discourage would-be competitors. The inscription is a public decree directed against a group of ferrymen accused of preventing others from operating in the same line of business: 52 ... they prevent many from taking part in the ferry business. And moreover, they have set the fare at 2 asses instead of 2 obols, and they have joined together for this purpose and they stop persons who

sop, Oxy. 54 has a large number of these texts, and contains references to earlier studies. 51CJ 4.59.2. Cf. Garnsey (1985). 52JK 24.1, 712 (first/second century AD).

Introduction

15

want to carry people over, so that people who have to use the ferry are dependent on them; and they also cause harm to the other ferry services in the same way. The boule and the demos have, therefore decided, following the motion of ...

The background to all this is no doubt the fact that ferry services of this sort were leased out by the city authorities.53 The ferrymen of Smyrna may have hoped to be able to negotiate a better deal with the city by removing the competition, thereby establishing a monopoly. Another occupational group which seems to have abused a publicly granted monopoly consisted of the money-changers of Pergamon, whose services all market traders were obliged to use. These money-changers were already allowed to charge their customers at a rather unfavourable rate. Not satisfied with this, they abused their privilege by imposing:54 a surcharge for worn coins and a 'pourboire', as they call it, abuses they practise especially on the sellers of fish.

This was unacceptable, and the small traders lodged a complaint with the city authorities, who were unable - or unwilling - to take action. It took a letter from the emperor Hadrian to put matters right in this case, but the practice may have been widespread. 55 Two texts from Ephesos provide us with some more evidence for professional groups defending their economic interests. The famous riot of Ephesos, caused by silversmiths who were attempting to protect their livelihood, may be found in the New Testament.56 A proconsular decree which was found near Magnesia but which undoubtedly came from Ephesos was directed against the bakers (artopoioi) who had plunged the city into disorder and tumult by staging a strike. 57 Whatever the

53cf. BE (1967), 149, and comments a.I. in IK 24.1, 712. OGIS 572 mentions a ferry monopoly in Myra in Lycia. 54IGR 4, 352. 55Another example of a money-changing monopoly is in IK 34, 605 (from Carian Mylasa). A fragment from Bithynian Nikomedeia (TAM 4.1, 3) is a decree directed against faeneratores (pleisteriazontes) whose actions had led to unrest ( thorubos) in the town. 56Acts 19: 23-28. The episode will be discussed below in Chapter 6. 57JK 12, 215 with references to earlier editions and literature. Unfortunately we do not know the background to their behaviour. We have some other examples of unrest caused by bakers. Libanius describes a similar situation in fourth-century Antioch ( Oratio l .206 sqq. See below, in Chpater 2). A recently published dedication to Concord (Homonoia) by associations of flour sievers and dough moulders from the city of Side (Pamphylia) is not only indicative of a high degree of specialisation of labour, but also suggests that there may have been considerable tensions between the different specialists; see SEG 33, 1165.

16

Introduction

background to this action may have been, it is obvious that occupational groups were able to throw their weight around in a city.ss This is only a small selection of texts, of course, but it is reasonable to believe that they are only the tip of the iceberg. In themselves they are sufficient to put a question mark against the current orthodoxy on the economic activities of ancient collegia. I shall not be dedicating a separate chapter to economic activities, but further evidence relevant to this theme will be brought forward during my discussion of other collegia activities. The importance of work as a source of social identity will be discussed in chapter 1, and in chapter 2 we shall see that the economic interests of collegia were sometimes defended by their patrons. In chapter 3, I shall go on to discuss certain economic advantages derived by the collegia from civic festivals. Ancient historians may still object that the gap between medieval guilds and ancient collegia remains a wide one; that it can only be said of the latter that their raison d'etre was essentially economic. It is therefore necessary to establish whether

or not we are entitled to make any such categorical statement about the nature of medieval and early modern guilds. Finley's observations on collegia and guilds are embedded in a wider discussion of the nature of the ancient economy which was itself predicated upon Weberian ideas about fundamental differences between the medieval and the ancient city.s9 This is not the place for a detailed discussion of these issues, but it is worth pointing out that the validity of Finley's comparative model has come under attack. 60 The modernising view of the medieval economy presented by Weber is no longer universally accepted, with historians now arguing that the economies of medieval and early modern Europe were no less traditional or 'embedded', and emphasising in their turn fundamental differences between these and modern capitalist economies. Modern views on medieval and early modern guilds have moved with the tide. Finley's assertion that the raison d'etre of medieval guilds was purely economic is based on Mickwitz's argument that cartel functions were at the very heart of the

SSThe classic discussion of strikes in Roman Asia Minor is Buckler (1923). See also MacMullen (1963). A more up-to-date discussion can be found in Thomaldis (1988). Van Minnen (1988) uses mainly papyrological evidence to show that professional associations also promoted economic interests. S9Cf. Finley ( 1981 ). 60Recent descriptions of the status quaestionis may be found in Pleket (1990 b), 31-55 and in Harris (1993). For a short survey of the recent historiographical trends concerning guilds, see Lis and Soly (1994).

Introduction

17

growth of the guild movement in medieval Europe.61 This now seems an enormous oversimplification. Piety, conviviality, charity and sociability were all important features of medieval and early modern guilds,62 and it has been recognised increasingly that the essence of the medieval fenomeno associativo is to be found in the peculiar interaction between all these elements. As Lis and Soly recently put it:63 The fascinating aspect of craft-guilds - and this is also what makes them interesting to modern scholarship - is precisely that they had so many functions simultaneously: occupational organisation, collective monopolist, mutual insurance group, disciplinary court, political lobbyist, focus of secular and religious rituals, network of sociability, and much more.

Thus described, guilds appear rather more similar to ancient collegia than has been thought. It should, moreover, be noted that medieval guilds were not always successful in

their pursuit of economic aims. They may have occupied an economically dominant position in the (exceptional) textile centres - to which prominence the many surviving guild regulations are testimony - but they did not hold equal sway everywhere. Their role was particularly limited in the great majority of small market towns and sleepy Landstiidte, which were in many respects not too dissimilar to the majority of ancient cities. The economic relevance of their 'cartel functions' is far from self-evident. Most guilds appear to have been unable to exercise much influence over selling prices within local trade, even though they were frequently suspected by contemporaries of making attempts in that direction, especially during

6lcf. Mickwitz (1936), 159: '... es bleibt nur ein Zweck, der einerseits die Anspriiche der Ziinfte auf Kontrolle des gesamten Handwerks erklaren kann, anderseits aber im europaischen Mittelalter iiberall nachweisbar ist: der wirtschaftliche'. 62Cf. Coornaert (1948), who traced the origin of medieval guilds back to early medieval feasting societies; he believed that feasting was the central activity of any guild. Thrupp (1963) discusses various theories concerning the origins of guilds. She emphasises that their social and religious character transcended mere economic interest and the struggle for power (ibid., 230). Many more recent studies also tend to focus on the religious and social aspects of guild life in medieval and early modern Europe: cf. Black (1989) and Henderson (1994) on Italian fraternities. McRee (1994) discusses the participation of guilds in public processions in medieval Norwich. In a recent study of the importance of guilds in the emergence of modern wage labour, Epstein ( 1991) is still dedicating considerable attention to their social and religious functions. Mackenney's incisive study (1987) of guild life in medieval and early modern Venice contains only one chapter on the guilds' economic activities; the main thrust of his argument has to do with their place in the Venetian polity, their character as religious brotherhoods and their participation in public feasts. 63Lis and Soly (1994), 11: 'Het fascinerende (en wetenschappelijk-problematische) karakter van de ambachten schuilt precies in het feit dat zij zoveel verschillende functies tegelijk vervulde: beroepsorganisatie, collectieve monopoliehouder, verzekeringsfonds, rechtbank, politieke pressiegroep, brandpunt van profane en religieuze rituelen, sociabiliteitsnetwerk, en nog veel meer.'

Introduction

18

periods of scarcity. 64 We might also instance the widespread system of apprenticeship, often seen as a classical cartel operation designed to limit the number of competitors in order to increase individual shares of the economic pie. Thrupp argued long ago that its main aim was not so much to keep numbers down as to control who was coming in: 65 Men were admitted to gild mastership only after some inquiry into character, on the assumption that they could thereafter be trusted to do reliable work. There was no claim that all gild work would be of first class quality, but only that if you bought from a gild member, his goods would meet reasonable expectations. The term used to convey this idea was 'loyal'. A gild of locksmiths would make only loyal keys, and gild pastry cooks in Paris would use only loyal eggs. (Emphasis added).

'Cartel' measures, so it appears, were as much part of a 'moral economy' as they were informed by the rationality of the market place.66 There is therefore no reason to think of the average guild member as a better example of the homo economicus than his predecessor in a Roman collegium. During both periods craftsmen and traders had economic concerns in mind when they joined an association based on a shared occupation, but in both cases these figured amongst a range of other considerations. There appear to be few grounds for insisting upon a fundamental divide in this respect between guilds and collegia. The same may apply to another tenet of the primitivist view.

The social status of craftsmen and traders Another key element of modern views on the social importance (or rather marginality) of the collegia involves the social, economic and political status of their members. Who were the homines tenuiores who populated the collegia of ancient towns? Again, Finley suggests an answer that is framed in a comparativist discourse. He mentions as a typical example of ancient craftsmen the linen-weavers of Tarsos, who were apparently fairly poor: 67 few could afford the 500-drachma fee required for the acquisition of local citizenship.

64Turupp (1963), 263. 65Thrupp (1963), 264-265. 66The term 'moral economy' was coined by Thompson in 1971, in an article entitled 'The moral economy of the English crowd in the eighteenth century' which is now included in Thompson ( 1993), 185-258, with an afterword on pp. 259-351. 67Finley (1985), 136. The reference is to Dio Chrysostom 34.21-23.

Introduction

19

Finley contrasts the linen-weavers with their counterparts in the great medieval textile towns: 68 The clothmakers of Flanders had no difficulty in meeting the financial charges of citizenship; on the contrary, they were an integral section of the ruling oligarchies.

A telling contrast; but is it valid? I leave aside the point that medieval clothmakers were socially less of a uniform group than Finley seems to suggest here; many Flemish journeymen and apprentices - and even many small-time masters - would have been surprised to find themselves described as members of the ruling oligarchies. I shall instead concentrate upon Finley's description of craftsmen in the cities of the Roman East, which does not seem entirely adequate either. Let us look again at Tarsos: the passage in Dio does not refer to a census criterion of 500 drachmae, but to the price at which citizenship was sold to outsiders.69 There is no reason to assume that linourgoi were unable en bloc to pay this amount; in fact, Dio explicitly states that several among their number would have been able to pay the sum required, but were banned from citizenship for other reasons. The reason for their exclusion is unknown, but it was considered an anomaly by Dio, especially as other occupational groups in Tarsos did enjoy citizenship, and he suggests that the linen-weavers could have been accepted without any problem.70 There remains the question of how representative Tarsos was of the cities of the Greek East. Finley's view was undoubtedly formed against the background of the (elite) ideology of the classical polis, where in many cases an unresolved tension persisted between the carrying on of banausic or commercial activities and the demands of full citizenship. 11 This tension did not, however, usually lead to the exclusion of citizens from full citizenship on the basis of their occupation. 72 In a few Hellenistic cities

68Finley (1985), 138. 69Sartre (1991), 128-129; also Quass (1993), 355-356. 70For a discussion see also Jones ( 1978), 80-81, who argues that the linen-weavers were united in a collegium. 71For a recent discussion, see von Reden (1992). Cartledge (1993), 110-111 refers to Aristotle's preference for citizenship that excluded banausoi and georgoi (Politika 1277b, 3-7; 1325 a, 28-30); this was, however, prescriptive, not descriptive. Cf. Levy (1979). Not all poleis were the same: Herodotus 2.167.2 mentions Corinth's unusual tolerance towards artisans: 'The feeling against craftsmen (cheirotechnas) is least strong in Corinth.' 72Although social prejudice could be strong: a gymnasiarchal law from the Macedonian city of Beroia (cf. SEG 27, 261, now in a new edition by Gauthier and Hatzopoulos (1993) II. 27-29) denies entry to 'to those who exercise a craft in the market place' (M11[8]i: Tt0v ciyopa(m TEXVlJ KEXPflµEvwv). It is important to note that the function of the Macedonian gymnasium was to provide military training; this text does not imply that craftsmen did not have full citizenship, but rather that the active practice of their professions could not be combined with military training. Cf. Gauthier and Hatzopoulos

Introduction

20

craftsmen and traders may not have enjoyed full franchise, but these were clearly exceptional.73 The assemblies of most Greek cities under Roman rule remained open to a wide cross-section of the middle-ranking population, 74 and it seems very likely that in most cities' assemblies craftsmen and traders were in the majority. 75 This was certainly how Cicero perceived things when he characterised the assemblies of the province of Asia as meetings of egentes et [eves, referring to opifices, tabemarii,

sutores and wnarii (craftsmen, traders, cobblers and belt-makers).76 We have various other evidence that craftsmen and traders participated in the assemblies. The most striking examples come from a number of Lydian cities, where occupational groups were described as phylai. The designation 'occupational tribes' indicates that they had some formal political status in these cities.77 However, the inscriptions which mention these occupational tribes do not refer explicitly to their political activities. Two inscriptions from Philadelphia refer to a 'sacred tribe of the shoemakers' 78 and to a 'sacred tribe of the wool-weavers'7 9 acting as an 'executive branch' of local government by setting up public honorific statues of civic benefactors. 80 A series of recently published inscriptions from nearby Saittai tells us that seats were reserved for a 'tribe of linen-weavers' in that city's stadium, but does not explain the nature of their political activities. 81 There is some evidence that craftsmen and traders could take their professional concerns to the assemblies of other cities. The Ephesos silversmiths' riot ended up in the theatre, and the scene is described as an ekklesia by the author of the Acts. 82 A

(1993), 85-87. It is interesting to consider the other categories excluded: apart from traders, the law excluded slaves, freedmen, drunks and the mentally disturbed! 73The assemblies of the Sicilian city of Halaesa required certain property qualifications, and men practising a trade (such as auctioneers) were banned from the council; cf. Cicero In Verrem II. 11.12, and De Ste. Croix (1981), 523. 74Mitchell (1993), 204. 75Quass (1993), 355-365. 76 Cicero Pro Fiacco 17-19, 52-61. Cf. Quass (1993), 357-358; and de Ste. Croix (1981), 310. Polybius 38.12.5 mentions a crowd of small traders and craftsmen (ergasteriakoi kai banausoi anthropoi) assembling at a meeting of the Achaian League; cf. De Ste. Croix (1981), 524. 77There is no evidence to support the suggestion of an Anatolian (pre-Greek) origin. Cf. Broughton (1959), 845-6. 78'fEpa ¢uAD Twv epymJTT)ptaKWV. This probably means that he was in charge of workers in a state ergasterion. Workers in imperial gynaecea engaged in activities similar to those of other professional associations, including funerary care; e.g. SEO 16, 417, with Robert (1956). For other assertions that a tomb was full, see Robert (1968), 445-448 (=OMS 6, 121124), and Sijpesteijn (l 991 ). 75The inscriptions from Lamos have been collected by Bean and Mitford in various publications: Bean and Mitford (1962), 209-2ll, nos. 33-35; Bean and Mitford (1965), 31-33, no. 34, and Bean and Mitford (1970), 175-184, nos. 190-202.

Funerary Activities

47

from the city of Selge in Pamphylia. The inhabitants of the latter city displayed remarkable geographical mobility, popping up as resident foreign traders or builders in a wide range of cities. 76 They appear nonetheless to have been careful not to sever their links with their own land and compatriots, and they often formed their own associations abroad. The associations of Selgians in Lamos appear to have been particularly exercised about the funerals of their fellow citizens, building a number of collective tombs in the Lamian countryside. 11 The regulations contained in these inscriptions provide us with various details of the procedures involved in setting up a collective tomb. The tombs were usually commissioned and maintained by groups of named individuals (mostly men, but some women's names appear) describing themselves as a community (koinon),18 as partners (metochoi)1 9 or brothers (adelphoi), 80 or, less formally, as 'the people who gathered around Mobrenis Eondou' (there follows a list of names)8 1 and 'those five'.82 A member of one of these groups had a contract ( homologon) entitling him or her to a share (meros or koinoneia)S3 in a common tomb. Such contracts appear to have been fairly exclusive, being limited to the original members and their immediate families. Several texts prohibit the sale of shares to outsiders without the consent of the other associates;84 one text includes a provision that if any member 'goes up', i.e. leaves for Selge, the other brothers must buy back his share. 85 Non-members of the original partnership could only be buried in the tomb under special circumstances: members' sons and (unmarried) daughters were apparently allowed in,86 but a decision on other individuals had to be made by the entire association.87 Burial in the tomb was thus a jealously guarded privilege. Anyone who contravened the

76Inscriptions referring to Selgians abroad are collected together in IK 37, T32-57. 77Bean and Mitford (1970), plates 152-158, contains some photographs of the monuments and inscriptions. 78Bean and Mitford (1970), nos. 197, 198, 200. 79Bean and Mitford (1962), 209, no. 33. 80Bean and Mitford (1970), nos. 201, 202. 81Bean and Mitford (1965), no. 34 (ol TipoµETpat. See also JRS 73 (1983), 125, II. 5-7 (Jones): 'but if they do not exact it, they themselves shall be liable, and subject to exaction by anyone who wishes, whether citizen or stranger, the successful claimant having the privilege of half the sum to be extracted.' (Translation Jones). 14 1CJ. 3.44.6: 'Tomb inscriptions do not transfer either rights over tombs or ownership of nonreligious land to freedmen.' 142Crook (1967), 133-138. 143Crook (1967), 138.

Funerary Activities

59

should, of course, also be seen against the background of mortuary elaboration mentioned above. Neikostratos seems not to have been able to lay claim to any form of public recognition. This he had in common with the great majority of selfcommemorators of this type, whose social status does not, on the whole, appear to have been very high; hardly any councillors or other relatively high-ranking individuals are to be found amongst them.144 Neikostratos' epitaph, however, like the epitaphs of other self-commemorators, can be read as testimony to his ambition to raise his public status. These epitaphs turned a desire for personal commemoration into a public matter by appealing to the protection of the law. Such claims were supported in two ways: by mentioning documents that were deposited in the public archives (private documents, but protected by the city), and by delegating the responsibility for taking legal action to an organisation with public status, which presumably strengthened the sanction. We have established that there appears to have been a clear preference for organisations and groups whose status in society was relatively high and well accepted, and that the relative standing of these groups found expression in the sizes of the fines that each group received.145 The funerary epigraphy of the selfcommemorators was used not as a forum for protest against the social hierarchy, but as a demonstration of adherence to elite principles of classification. However, whereas members of the elite orders saw the social hierarchy exclusively in terms of senators, equestrians, decurions and the rest, individuals lower down the social ladder added various types of lower-class association to this hierarchy. We can therefore see the inscriptions that mention fines as expressions of how men of middling wealth and status perceived the social hierarchy, and of how they saw the place of collegia therein. 1441 found two officers of the fleet, both in Kyzikos. IK 18, 513 is the tomb of a praefectus classis of the fleet in the Black Sea. These men were usually of equestrian status, but there were freedmen among them; cf. Starr (1941), 30-38. IK 18, 243 is an inscription for a trierarch, a captain. Such men were of considerably lower status: they were often freedmen or peregrini, cf. Starr (1941), 43-45. Moreover, I only found four councillors. IK 23, 244 is a bouleutes who was also prytanis. The other bouleutai, however, seem to have been less prominent. IK 23, 246 is a bouleutes who mentions his profession as being that of a paidotribes (gymnastics instructor); he was at best a marginal councillor. IK 23, 243 mentions only that he was bouleutes; he is not mentioned in any other text. All these were from Smyrna. The couple in IK 18, 49 mention that they are both from bouleutic families, but the husband does not seem to have held any magistracy himself. Another gerousiast is to be found in Kyzikos (IK 18, 582). Gerousiasts, however, came from various social backgrounds; cf. van Rossum (1988). In this context, it is significant that many more fines were destined for gerousiai than for the boulai. Was this a reflection of the middling status of many of the self-commemorators, who had acquired or could have aspired to membership of the gerousia, but usually not of the boule? 145For differences in sizes of fine and for preference for public bodies as recipients, see Jones (1983), 123.

60

Funerary Activities These attempts at self-representation had a positive effect upon the status of the

associations nominated to receive fines. Private associations found themselves mentioned in the same contexts, and entrusted with the same responsibilities, as the fundamental institutions of civic life in a Roman city. Funerary fines thus served as convenient vehicles for 'status association', the process that helped craftsmen and traders to feel part of the city. 146 In the next section I shall argue that this was also an effect of the involvement of collegia with the funerary foundations of wealthy individuals.

2. An inscription from Ephesos, set up by the grain-measurer Pompeius Euprosdektos, clearly displays his concern for his tomb, for the inscription that was to perpetuate his name and for the commemoration rituals that were to take place for himself and his immediate family: 147 This is the tomb of Pompei us Euprosdektos, grain-measurer, and of his wife Aurelia Julia and of their children. Built during their lifetime. Nobody except the aforementioned shall have permission to bury another corpse in it, or to erase the inscription. In charge (of the tomb) are the Ephesian craftsmen who are based in the propyleion near the statue of Poseidon. To these he has dedicated 500 denarii, so that out of the interest thereof there shall be a wine feast and candles and a wreath, worth 10 denarii. And they shall have their wine feast on the fifth day of the finishing month Poseideon (i.e. the 25th). If they

shall not do this, but let it pass, the Ephesian grain-measurers shall sue them and extract a fine.

This inscription is a striking example of the kind of petty status ambitions and pretensions that can be found at the level of petits personnages such as grain measurers. 148 Euprosdektos must have thought it a fitting display of his control over others, since even from beyond the grave he was able to direct the actions of two professional associations.1 49 He exercised this control by means of a funerary foundation, as was common practice throughout the Roman Empire, a certain amount of money or some interest-bearing property (usually a plot of land) being left to a strictly defined group which had to use it for a specific purpose.

146Mackenney (1987) has used this term to describe the effects of the participation of Venetian trade fuilds in the public ceremonial of that city. 47IK 17.1, 3216, from Ephesos. 148Cf. Robert (1977), 96. 149He must have been a member of the association of prometrai, which was based in the harbour of Ephesos, but he left his foundation in the first instance to an association of craftsmen whose base was close to a statue of Poseidon. It has been suggested that their special relationship with Poseidon made them suitable celebrators of a banquet in the month Poseideon. Cf. Robert (1977), 95.

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61

Foundations differed widely in size and purpose, and also with respect to the categories into which their beneficiaries fell, but their basic characteristics were the same. It has become customary to distinguish between two principal types of foundation, although it is probably better to approach these as two points on a sliding scale. l50 At one end of the scale we find the commemorative foundations left by wealthy individuals, usually members of the elite orders, to a city or to an official subdivision of the citizenry. These foundations were of a clearly public character: they were administered by public bodies, they were located in the city centre, and their purpose was often euergetistic. At the other end of the scale were funerary foundations which operated more privately. Their purpose was, in Andreau's terminology,151 'reflexive'; in other words, the founder had a personal interest in the aims of the foundation. Such foundations usually had to do with the maintenance of the tomb and the celebration of funerary and commemorative rituals for the founder or his immediate relatives, carried out by a small number of people. Amongst the typical beneficiaries of this kind of foundation were family groups, freedmen and quite a few private associations. 152 Andreau has argued that these foundations seem to have served as a vehicle for the status aspirations of marginal curia/es and of lower-class benefactors. 153 It is more difficult to establish the social status of the creators of this type of foundation in the Roman East, but it seems more than likely that similar social considerations played a part.154 150cf. Jones (1983), 116, and Andreau (1977). See also Schmitt-Pante! (1981) and (1992), 295-303. The most authoritative study of ancient foundations is Laum (1914). 151 Andreau (1977). 152Examples from Ephesos are a neighbourhood association (IK 16, 2117, and 2298a) and the associations of xylopristai (sawyers) (IK 16, 2115), bed-makers (IK 16, 2213), silversmiths (IK 16, 2212 and 2441), tax farmers (IK 16, 2227), physicians (IK 16, 2304) and linen-weavers (IK 16, 2446). In Hierapolis purple-dyers appear as recipients in AAST 101 (1966-1967), 305, no. 23 (Pennachietti); Judeich ( 1898), no. 133 (mentioned only as third choice after two associations of smiths); Judeich (1898), no. 195; Judeich (1898), no. 227 (along with an Epyaofa 9pEµµanKtj, which was probably an association of threptoi [foster-children, or adopted slaves]); Judeich (1898), no. 342 (jointly with an association ofKmpo8arr[crToL [?]).Wool-washers appear in AAST 101 (1966-1967), 317-318, no. 45 (Pennachietti); an association of public scribes in Judeich (1898), no. 67, and an association of -Atjywv aµL>..[as (the association of a familia of slaves), in Thermai Theseos in Lydia, in TAM 5.1, 71. Numerous examples from Italy and the western provinces can be found in Flambard (1987); Andreau (1977); Waltzing (1895-1900) IV, 533-545. 153Andreau (1977), esp. 180-189. 154For the social status of the donors of funerary foundations, as opposed to those of commemorative foundations, see Schmitt-Pante! (1981), esp. 181-182; van Rossum (1988), 165-168.

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Funerary Activities The responsibilities of the foundation's beneficiaries often started with the

maintenance of the tomb. The fear that a tomb might collapse from neglect, or be stripped by people looking for cheap building materials, was undoubtedly a realistic one. A tomb was a locus religiosus,155 and as such it was protected by Roman law.156 However, many self-commemorators may well have thought it better to take matters into their own hands than to rely upon the judicial system. One option was to appoint a tomb guard, who could be made part of the funerary foundation, as happened with a foundation whose nominated recipients were the gerousia of Hierapolis.157 Another was to entrust the care of the monument to an association, in exchange for which the association received an endowment. This arrangement was often indicated by a simple formula as in the case of the silversmiths of Ephesos:.158 The association of silversmiths has the care of this grave. The kedeia (the charge of the tomb) does not appear to have been limited to taking care of its physical condition. The self-commemorators often demanded in addition the performance of various funerary rituals and commemorative ceremonies. One common element was the organisation of a commemorative banquet, or at least a wine feast on a fixed day of the year: 159 This monument belongs to Aurelia Nike alias Nonne and Aurelius Zopyros, and their son, Philetos alias Zopyrion. (It was built) during their lifetime, and they consecrated to the sweetest association of the xy/opristai (sawyers) [... denarii], in order that in the seventh month a wine feast shall be organised from the interest by the xylopristai ..

155Crook

(1967), 133.

156Dig. 47.12 (De sepulchro vio/ato ).

157Tue µrn>.aµ~civovTOs Kat KaTa Torrov TTJPTJTO[u] TOU i!pyou is in Judeich (1898), no. 293 (Hierapolis). An Athenian cult association also appointed a tomb guard: IG 22, 1369 (second century AD).

158JK 16, 2212: TaUTT]S T~S aopou tdi8ETm TO auvE8pLOv Twv cipyupoK6rrwv. Other examples are an association of porters otlnvEs Kat povTL(Lv I µEAA{w}ouaw TTEpl rn[UTT]S T~S aopou]. IK 23, 205 (Smyrna); synodos of the potters: [TOUTOU] TOU ~p(\\ou K~8q[m] I[~ auvo]8os TWV KEpaµE[wv] in IK 16, 2402 (Ephesos). See also: IK 2200a; TAM 5.2, 1098; Herzog (1899), 71, no. 46; Judeich (1898), no. 167; IK 23, 209; IK 15, 1676 and 1677. 159JK 16, 2115 (from Ephesos). Other feasts: the association of inhabitants of the Enbolos in Ephesos received a foundation for a feast in December (IK 16, 2117); another foundation arranged for a distribution of wine to the association of ergatai propyleitai, mentioned above: IK 17.1, 3216. The gerousia of Hierapolis received a dianome (a distribution) every year, according to Judeich (1898), no. 278. A cult association in Boiotia received a hestiasis every year: Roesch (1982), 128-129, no. 10. Finally, a very modest funerary foundation from Neos Skopos, in Macedonia, consisting of 15 denarii, stipulates that out of the interest one bowl of wine must be filled and presented to a village association at the tomb of the testator. See AE (1936) Chron., 17-19, no. 10 (Bakalakis).

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In some cases the inscription makes further specific demands: candles were to be

provided out of the income from a foundation for an association of tax-farmers,160 and out of that from another for the association of ergatai propyleitai in Ephesos.161 Often the entire association was involved in the celebrations, but it was not unusual for only a few selected members to take part. 162 All participants were expected to wear festive clothing and a wreath. In the case of a foundation for a cult association from Thessalonica, it was explicitly stated that any members who did not wear a wreath of roses at the celebrations were not to benefit from the income derived from the foundation. 163 Crowns, wreaths and garlands (all translations of stephanos) must have elicited a variety of associations in the minds of the participants in these banquets. They referred, of course, primarily to the world of cult and sacrifice, but they were also closely associated with the hhonorific language that was widely used in GraecoRoman cities. Stephanoi had been a quintessentially civic form of honouring major benefactors in classical Athens . 164 The practice was taken up by Athenian cult associations, and by the Hellenistic and Imperial periods crowns were frequently awarded outside Athens to the benefactors of private cult associations, koina of foreign traders and, less frequently, occupational associations.165 In this process, funerary practices seem to have borrowed from honorific practices. The epitaphs from Saittai to which I referred earlier were linked to 160JK 16, 2227. 161JK 17.1, 3216 (already mentioned above). 162A foundation for a cult association in Amorion in Phrygia states explicitly that all the mystai are to be invited to a commemorative feast (REG 2 (1889], 18-22, no. I [Ramsay]= Lauro (1914], 135-136, no. 175 [A] and 176 [BJ and [CJ). AAST 101 (1966-1967), 305, no. 23 (Pennachietti), records a foundation for the proedria of the purple-dyers of Hierapolis. Each year a number of dyers, selected by drawing lots, are to use the interest from 144 denarii for a banquet (EVpav!lwaL) at the tomb of the testator. See also AAST IOI (1966-1967), 317-318, no. 45 (Pennachietti), which refers to selected members of an association of wool-washers who have a share in the charge of the tomb: TOLS" TiiS" Epyaa[as- Twv EpLOTTAUTWV TOLS" µETEXOUGLV Twv ETTLµEAl]µEvwv. It is likely that a similar mechanism operated within the gerousia of Hierapolis, which was subdivided into various pyxia which served as the recipients of funerary foundations; see van Rossum (1988), 165 sqq. 163JG 10.2.1, 260 C, II. 1-8: «j>EpETwaav 5€> Kal ol µi!aTE µLKpos- µEyas- EKaaTOS" GTEcj>avov p65Lvov, 6 5€ µl] EVEVKUS" µlj µETEXETW µou TiiS" 5wpEiiS". 164Wallace-Hadrill (1990), 150-154. 165E.g. professional associations: Roesch (1982), 168-171, no. 23 (hunters, Haliartos, Boiotia); Robert (1929 b), 35 no. A(= OMS I, 545, no. A) (ferrymen, Chios); Robert (1929 b), 36-37, no. D (= OMS I, 546-547, no. D) (ship-owners and shopkeepers, Chios). Foreign traders: Annuario 17-18 (1939-1940), 147, no. I (Pugliese-Carratelli): Eranistai Adoniazontes; Annuario 17-18 (1939-1940),. 152, no. 8 (Pugliese-Carratelli): Aphrodisiastai; Annuario 17-18 (1939-1940), 153, no. 11 (PuglieseCarratelli): Diosoteriastai; Annuario 17-18 (1939-1940), 155, no. 16 (Pugliese-Carratelli): Athanaistai; Annuario 17-18 (1939-1940), 165-167, no. 19 (Pugliese-Carratelli): eranistai Athanaistai. Cult associations: TAM 5.2, 959 (Herakleiastai, Thyateira); Robert, Hellenica 6, 115116 (Diastai, in Parsada, Lydia); IK 32, 33-35 (Thiasos, Triglia Apameia, Bithynia).

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honorific inscriptions by the use of the verb 'timao' (to honour), and by the frequent depiction of a stephanos on the stele. This overlap between funerary and honorific language also appears in Rhodes, where it is often hard to draw a distinction between funerary and honorific inscriptions; it is particularly difficult in the case of inscriptions relating to associations of foreigners, since funerary practice was a forum for their honorific activities.166 It appears that many self-commemorators, determined not to forgo the symbolic advantages of these crowns after their deaths, reserved money (stephanotikon) to ensure that stephanoi were placed on their tombs each year.167 This may have been read as an honour, but it was an honour which the deceased had bestowed upon himself. The frequent mention of roses in funerary contexts has a different implication.168 Roses were part of the Roman festival of the rosalia (one of the principal occasions for the commemoration of the dead), which was introduced into the East during this period.169 This festival can be seen as an index of Romanisation, as Robert put it: 110 Cette ... fete est significative d'un milieu romanise; elle est un veritable revelateur. Self-commemorators who introduced rosalia into their funerary arrangements were thus making a deliberate statement of (assumed) Roman cultural identity. The funerary language of these self-commemorators seems to have been a derivative of the civic honorific language, but may also have been used to make 'claim[s] to privileged status within the Roman order'.171 It may be suggested, therefore, that the growth in the number of foundations set up by people of moderate status during the late Hellenistic and particularly the Roman period should be seen against the background of the process of mortuary elaboration to which I referred in the introduction to this chapter. Funerary foundations appeared in the late fourth century BC. They were set up by members of the elites of the Greek poleis. Initially, the beneficiaries tended to be members of the deceased's family. The foundations of Diomedon of Kos (fourth 166Fraser (1977), 65-68. Moreover, the funerary monuments of associations of foreigners show st'lf'.hanoi more frequently than do the monuments of citizens. 16 Van Rossum (1988), 165-166. 168Cf. BCH 24 (1900), 305-306, no. 2 (Perdrizet), which prescribes that the recipients of a funerary

foundation must make a burnt offering 'with roses' once a year (Tlapa-jKafoouatv 8€ citra~ I Tou hous p68ots). Presumably they were to wear the roses while making the offering (cf. BE [1976], 360). Other examples of foundations that prescribe roses: BE (1970), 512, with reference to Herrmann and Polatkan (1969); other examples in van Rossum (1988), 167-168 and 176. 169Collart (1931), 58-69. 170Robert (1960) 342 =OMS 2, 858, with reference to the hymnoidoi of Pergamon. Cf. BE (1970), 512; Robert, Hel/enica 8, 92, and 10, 251. See also van Rossum (1988), 167-168. 171Cf. Gordon et al. (1993), 155, apropos of Meyer (1991).

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century BC) 172 and of Epikteta of Thera (third century BC) were of this sort.173 Although it is difficult to appreciate the effect of these arrangements, it is hard to deny their ostentatious character, or, indeed, that of the inscriptions which recorded them. They should be seen as part of a wider process of elaboration of mortuary forms, seemingly characteristic of the post-classical period, whereby elite groups tried to break away from the more isonomic funerary practices of the fifth century ,174 This process may have been connected to an impulse amongst elite groups to use mortuary forms to ensure distinction and create social distance, and in particular to their need 'to announce and legitimate their increasingly dominant role in civic life',175 It appears to have been a successful strategy, as is shown by the arrangements made by a certain Peplos, a wealthy landowner in Ephesos during the first century of our era. 17 6 His foundation still primarily concerns a small group of Herostai, selected by Peplos. However, his arrangements seem to have been broader

in scope than those of Diomedon and Epikteta, since his foundation appears to have involved some highly respectable bodies and city officials: he allocated control of the foundation to the temple of Artemis, the Sebastoi and the Ephesian gerousia, as well as to the archontes and the paraphylax. This constant increase in the scale of funerary arrangements, which came to include official institutions and various subdivisions of the city, is, as we saw above, characteristic of many elite foundations of the late Hellenistic and Roman periods, and it confirms that the funerary foundation and commemorative foundations were not fundamentally different. 177 Commemorative foundations were no longer used for funerary rituals, but were used in expanding, reviving or inventing civic rituals which celebrated the name of the founder, thus merging private and public memories. The 'beautiful death' in the post-classical polis was the prerogative of the civic benefactor, the euergetes, who was a member of a narrowly defined order of

172LSCG 177; cf. Sherwin-White (1977), 210-213, who also discusses some other early Hellenistic foundations on that island. 173Epikteta: LSCG 135. 174As discussed earlier in this chapter, this process is documented best for Athens, but it did occur in all parts of Greece. See Morris (1994) and (1992), 154-155, for the earlier developments. Alcock (1991) centres her discussion of the elaboration of elite mortuary practices on the (archaeological) evidence for tomb cults. 175Alcock (1991), 458. 176Jones (1983); cf. SEO 33, 946. 177See, for an early example (second century BC), IG 12.7, 515, with Gauthier (1980), 210-220, no 3; see also SEO 30, 1084. General developments are discussed by Schmitt-Pante! (1981). For the tendency of elite families in the post-classical polis to include the entire community in their burial and commemorative ceremonies, see Alcock (1991), 456-457.

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honoratiores .118 This development acted, as it were, as a natural ceiling on further

elaboration of the mortuary forms used by the polis elite. Conspicuous consumption in death by the elite merged with various forms of civic euergetism which focused on the city and not on the graveyard. As with other forms of mortuary elaboration, people further down the social hierarchy imitated and emulated the strategies that they saw being deployed so successfully by the elite. Individuals who had neither the financial means nor the political clout to transfer their commemoration rituals to the city centre were forced to remain in the graveyard. If they wanted to address an audience beyond their immediate family, they could try to recruit other social groups as the recipients of their foundations. If it was not possible to address the city as a whole, or the boule, other more socially open subdivisions of the city, such as the gerousia or the youth associations, were available. 179 Failing that, there were numerous private associations of craftsmen and traders. Schmitt-Pante! concludes, in this context: 180 La fondation funeraire (sc. for small groups such as private associations) est un pis-aller pour qui ne peut pretendre a la memoire de la cite.

The practice benefited both parties, since a funerary foundation was a gift which brought honour to both founder and recipient. The foundations of the elites did not only help to establish the founder and his family in the upper echelons of the local social hierarchy; they were also intended, and read, as compliments to the city and to its most prestigious subdivisions. Benefactors of lesser means or status used these foundations to announce their social pretensions to the world, but the status of the recipients of these lesser gifts was also increased thereby. Collegia entrusted with tasks which might ideally have gone to such organisations as the boule or the gerousia had to be regarded as trustworthy and respectable organisations. This form of self-fashioning could be read as a claim to social status by the members of these associations, as an attempt to establish their place in the hierarchical order of the Greek city under Roman rule. There is a possibility, however, that such claims went largely unnoticed beyond the confines of the association members' own social circles. Most members of the elite seem to have remained unimpressed, seldom including private associations in their funerary arrangements or commemorative foundations. However, some collegia

I78Alcock (1991), 457; cf. also Schmitt-Pante! (1981), esp. 184. 179Van Rossum (1988), 165-168. 180schmitt-Pantel (1981), 183.

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appear to have succeeded in crossing the fine line that divided private funerary foundations from public commemorative foundations, as my last example demonstrates. This text is an inscription, or rather several fragments of different copies of various documents, recording a foundation set up by a wealthy citizen of Hypaipa, near Ephesos, in the year 301 AD. 18 1 Aurelius Aphianos came from a family of urban magistrates and imperial priests. He left most of his property to the city of Hypaipa as a foundation, the income from which was to be used for funerary sacrifices and tomb maintenance on behalf of the founder and his son (who was at that stage still alive, but probably ill), and for distributions to the boule.182 The interesting aspect of this arrangement, for the purposes of this chapter, is that six professional associations were involved in it, including the systemata of the woolsellers and the linen-weavers, and probably that of the dyers: 183 ... [to the loyal and] pious [dyers?] [l,500 denarii], to the wool-sellers 1,500 denarii, to the linenweavers 1,(500] denarii. Let the overseer plant each year five plethra of vines ... (in the) vineyard of the city which is also (ninety?) plethra in size ... if someone else becomes overseer (of the vineyard?) let him hand it over in full ... what he received to his successor. And I wish that the reeds which are in the estate, being sufficient for the [existing] vines, are distributed equally over the vineyards. I have ordered those who plant the vines also to plant reeds at the borders with the planted vines in the privately worked plethra, mentioned below. And I wish that of the [two] wine presses the northern one shall belong to the community [of citizens, the city?] and the southern one to the six associations which will work the press in an order determined each year by lot by their presidents. And no one shall have permission to trample the grapes before the lottery, or whoever shall act contrary to the stipulations must pay 10,000 denarii to [the other associations]. And I order that the city [and the six associations] shall have an equal share in the present pithoi. Let the overseers provide for the functioning of the baths, ensuring the help of the inhabitants. And I enjoin upon all the presidents in the associations to inscribe stelai with my decision in clear letters, and upon all the archontes to inscribe this in the sanctuary of the Persian Artemis Anaeitis, and to set up stelai with this text; one in the Herakles gymnasium and one in the Olympic gymnasium. Moreover, I enjoin upon all the

bouleutai, who shall take charge, that they submit the accounts concerning the property to the auditors with benevolence and zeal ...

181JK 17.2, 3803. The fragments were collated and commented upon by Drew-Bear (1980). Cf. also SEG, 30, 1382-1387 and BE (1981), 514. I follow the numbering of the fragments of the edition in

IK.

182JK 17.2, 3803 A and B. 183JK 17.2, 3803 D.

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The remaining fragments lay down fines for violating the tomb or changing the conditions of the foundation, and contain further provisions for setting up the stelai.184 Our fragments are presumably parts of these copies, which were to be set up - using 'clear letters' - in various parts of the city. If it was Aurelius' intention to erect an everlasting memorial for himself, he certainly succeeded. Aurelius' commemorative foundation was a striking symbol of his control over the city of Hypaipa from beyond the grave. It also represented a major event to the population of the city, who had to work in concert to secure a fitting memorial to the benefactor and his son. They tended the vines, trod the grapes, and celebrated the rituals as a community: once more the pursuit of individual status was paired with the establishment of group identity. In Hypaipa professional associations, working alongside the official institutions of the city, were granted the opportunity to show that they too were part of the community. CONCLUSIONS Quid proderit pompa defuncto? In this chapter, I have addressed this question by

reading the funerary epigraphy of Roman private associations closely. Unlike Commodian, whose frame of reference was religion and belief in an afterlife, I have tried to find an answer in the world of the living. I have argued that the funerary epigraphy of associations should be studied for its social meaning. Craftsmen and traders, just like other groups in society, used funerary epigraphy to make statements about their own identity and about their acquired or desired status in civic life. Their inscriptions borrowed from and referred to the funerary language that defined membership of the cities' elites. They helped to establish associations as separate and respectable subdivisions of the citizenry. They displayed their adherence to elite categories of social classification, and thus to their social order. The funerary language of associations was one of belonging. It is remarkable that the very inscriptions that were used to lay claim to social

status identified individuals primarily on the basis of their occupations, a development which represents a break with earlier practices in the Greek world. This oddity may be explained as a result of the rapid social and political changes of the first three centuries of our era. In fourth-century Athens epitaphs had identified individuals as members of the polis community by referring to their political role. The gradual transformation of traditional politics during the imperial period made 184JK 17.2, 3803 E and F.

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citizenship less significant as a mark of identification for members of the classes ranking below the local orders of councillors, who derived their social pretensions from their economic contribution to the community. In this context it becomes understandable that craftsmen and traders started to exploit their occupational titles as emblems of a distinction that they could not acquire by political means. The question remains, however, whether their claims were accepted by the people who set the cities' political and cultural agenda: the magistrates and civic benefactors who constituted the order of councillors. We have seen that one upper-class benefactor awarded these organisations a place in a foundation in his own memory, which suggests that collegia could sometimes be acceptable to the elite. Our evidence for this suggestion, however, is only a single text, written by one elite benefactor who recognised the collegia in his town and chose to include them in his funerary arrangements. In the next chapter I shall investigate the behaviour of other benefactors towards collegia outside the funerary sphere, and ask what this behaviour implies about the status of collegia in the cities of the Roman East.

CHAPTER TWO THE HONORIFIC PRACTICES OF PRIVATE ASSOCIATIONS

2: THE HONORIFIC PRACTICES OF PRIVATE ASSOCIATIONS INTRODUCTION Ancient cities were rich in visual display of all sorts. Visitors walking or riding along the roads leading into the towns were greeted by rows of tombs, varying from simple stelai to elaborate monuments situated in pleasant gardens. This was the city of the dead, where the names of individuals and families lived on through commemorative rituals, and, of course, through the large numbers of epitaphs and epigrams that invited the traveller to stop and read them. In the previous chapter I argued that the funerary area was really an extension of the world of the living. Funerary epigraphy could be seen to address contemporary questions, and private associations used it to negotiate for themselves a civic identity that blended occupational and public concerns. Once our traveller had passed this suburban belt and entered the city of the living, the range of visual impressions only increased. The 'great rebuilding' of the Greek East under Roman rule had produced a rich architecture of display. The streets were lined with impressive fa\:ades adorned with beautifully carved reliefs and statuary, and of course with inscriptions containing the names of the builders, or, just as often, those of gods and emperors. I This large-scale reorganisation of space was not a mere change of scenery, but a development with important social and cultural implications. As it was put recently:2 Built environments serve as a teaching medium, capable of clarifying individual and collective social roles and relationships; a changing society reconstructs itself through its buildings.

In this chapter, I shall consider the ways in which private associations used

honorific epigraphy and public space to clarify their role in society and to define their relationships with their social superiors. A striking element of the urban landscape was the omnipresence of statues, statue bases bearing inscriptions, and other honorific plaques on monuments, commending IJ have borrowed the term 'great rebuilding' from Johnson (1986). It was first applied to 17th-century England. For the changes in the urban landscapes of the Roman East, see e.g. Gros and Torelli ( 1988) and the articles in Macready and Thompson (1987) and Alcock (1993). 2Alcock (1993), 93.

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the names and faces of the members of the leading families to the collective memory of the citizens. These inscriptions usually also mention the creators of the honorific monuments. The majority of them were set up by the city's political institutions, the boule and demos; others were the work of respectable organisations, or of (semi-)

public bodies such as gerousiai, youth associations or boards of temple functionaries. Alongside the monuments set up by the city's official institutions we find the honorific statues and inscriptions of private associations, commemorating the relationships that they maintained with the leading members of society. These inscriptions are a major component of the total epigraphical representation of associations of this sort. Although it is hard to give precise numbers, I estimate that roughly one third of all the surviving inscriptions set up by (private) associations are honorific.3 They offer us a window onto the expectations and experiences of the members of collegia in their dealings with wealthy and powerful members of their society. The honorands

The subjects of honorific inscriptions set up by associations usually belonged to the Roman elite: sometimes they were even members of the imperial orders, belonging to the imperial bureaucracy or the army. Only a few honorands did not belong to elite categories; these were members (usually leading members and officials) of associations who had acted as their benefactors. Quite a few inscriptions and dedications were addressed to an emperor or to a member of his immediate entourage: a member of the imperial family, or some other individual closely associated with imperial rule. 4 An example of such an inscription is the following, from Salamis on Cyprus: s To the Emperor Caesar Trajan Hadrian Augustus - son of the god Trajan Parthicus and grandson of the god Nerva - pontifex maximus, tribune of the people for the fourteenth time, consul for the third. Father of the fatherland, saviour and benefactor of the world. The linen-weavers from all over Salamis.

It is unlikely that craftsmen and traders such as the linen-weavers of Salamis

would have attempted to lay claim to any sort of personal relationship with 'the 3poJand (1909), 423 estimated that the majority of inscriptions referring to associations were of the honorific type, but this now seems like an exaggeration. My own estimate is based on a provisional database of around 1,000 inscriptions referring to associations. More than 370 are honorific. 4 For a discussion of the place of imperial dedications see Price (1984 ), although he does not deal extensively with the role of private associations in the imperial cult. 5Mitford and Nikolaou (1974) 28-29, no. 13 (oi KaTC! foA.aµ"iva A.[vucjim).

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saviour and benefactor of the world'. Dedications to the emperor are perhaps best compared to dedications to the gods: they were demonstrations of the loyalty of his subjects, rather than the products of any special relationship, and as such they largely fall outside the scope of this chapter.6 The largest category of honorands, however, consists of members of the local elites: councillors, urban magistrates, benefactors and their families. My interpretation of the honorific habits of the collegia will focus on the relationships that the collegia maintained with this group. Models for honorific practices

These honorific practices can be approached in more than one way. Comparison with the activities of the collegia and corpora of Roman Italy and the western provinces suggests that patronage is the proper framework for interpretation, whereas the social practices that prevailed in the post-classical polis suggest that euergetism and its honorific language provide an equally appropriate model. 1. The subject of patronage in Italy and the western provinces has attracted the attention of both ancient historians and social scientists. 7 Their studies suggest that it may be difficult to find a definition of patronage that will satisfy both types of scholar. Some ancient historians have adopted a formal approach, maintaining that the correct definition should include nothing that a Roman would not have understood by the words patrocinium and patronatus. s According to this view, patronage can be said to have existed only where specific terms such as patronus and cliens were used; these terms, it is held, had strict technical meanings, and had formal status in Roman law.9 The approach appears to deny that patronage existed at all in the Greek world, and to minimise its importance even after the establishment of Roman rule in the East. 10 6 See Price (1984) for a general discussion. This is not to deny that certain upper-class patrons acted

as power-brokers and negotiated special imperial favours for collegia. This feature of the patronage system is discussed below in the section on legal help. 7Tue recent collection of articles in Wallace-Hadrill (1989) includes a good introduction and references to earlier literature. For personal patronage, see Saller (1982). Collective patronage (mainly of cities) is discussed by Harmand (1957) and Nicols (1979), (1980 a), (1980 b) and (1988). For studies by social scientists, see Gellner and Waterbury (1977), who exclude Roman patronage, Eisenstadt and Roniger (1984), and especially Johnson and Dandeker (1989). Bon this point, see Wallace-Hadrill (1989 b), 65-66; cf. also Nicols ( 1980), 367. 9Saller (1982), 1 mentions some problems of definition. Saller (1989) answers certain criticisms by more 'formalist' students of Roman patronage. Nicols (1980) discusses formal and informal approaches to patronage. IU'fhe appearance of the Greek term rrciTpwv as an equivalent for the Roman patronus seems to be limited mainly to instances of civic patronage by Roman imperial functionaries, and to a few special

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On the other hand, social scientists, in emphasising the ambivalent and unofficial aspects of patronage, have sometimes proposed definitions that appear to exclude classical Roman patronage. I I We should, of course, try to avoid both extremes. Fortunately, most ancient historians now accept a more flexible approach which sees patronage as a particular type of social relationship between partners of unequal standing. One definition with which many ancient historians would agree was proposed by Saller in his book on personal patronage. 12 He argues that 'something recognisable as patronage' appears where a social relationship is characterised by three elements: First, it involves the reciprocal exchange of goods and services. Secondly, to distinguish it from a commercial transaction in the marketplace, the relationship must be a personal one of some duration. Thirdly, it must be asymmetrical, in the sense that the two parties are of unequal status and offer different kinds of goods and services in the exchange. 13

The key words, then, are reciprocity, asymmetry and duration. Some authors add further nuances. It is quite clear, for example, that relationships between those who were not social equals cannot be separated from questions of power. It also seems reasonable to say 'that the relationship was conducted along lines largely determined by the party of superior status'. 14 On the other hand, it is recognised that patronage relationships were entered into voluntarily, and were not enforceable by Roman law.15 Instead, patronage seems to have relied largely upon moral sanctions (loss of respect and status) capable of affecting both parties. Symbolic violence was often as effective as the real thing.16 We are dealing, then, with an area of the moral economy in which the exchanges between patrons and clients were valued in symbolic as well as in material terms. As a consequence, the language of patronage was frequently marked by a studied imprecision: patrons were often praised not merely for being patrons, but for their friendship, their generosity or their moral excellence. 17 This means that it is not

contexts where it was important to establish that a personal relationship (between a former slave and his or her former master) was sanctioned by Roman Jaw. Cf. SEG 38, 1976 ii propos ofTouloumakos (1988); SEG 40, 1690; SEG 34, 691; SEG 33, 1170; SEG 37, 1175. llGellner (1977); also Weingrod (1977). For a critical view, see Finley (1983), 40-41. 12Definitions in Wallace-Hadrill (1989), 3-4; Millett (1989), 16. Bsaller (l 982), 1. 14MilJett (1989), 16. 15Nicols (1980), 366. Garnsey and Woolf (1989) also emphasise the voluntary character of patronage relationships. 16Nicols (1980), 366. For the term 'symbolic violence' see Bourdieu (1977) 21, 190-197. 171 shall come back to this point below, in the second part of this chapter.

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always necessary to look for a few particular terms; instead, we should keep a lookout for a wide variety of expressions which may reveal patterns of unequal exchange. Most studies of ancient patronage deal mainly with relationships between individuals, and some historians may even feel that the only 'true' patronage is individual. is It could perhaps be argued that promoting vertical ties of solidarity above horizontal ones led to a conflict with other forms of solidarity between social equals, such as private associations. It may also be suggested, however, that these two types of social relationship were complementary rather than mutually exclusive. 19 Members of the Roman elite frequently acted as the patrons of collectivities such as cities and collegia. Roman observers, moreover, made little or no conceptual distinction between individual and collective forms of patronage: the latter 'was described in similar vocabulary, was equally heritable, and also involved reciprocal services'. 20 The patrons of collegia must have acted not only as benefactors but as brokers, securing for ordinary craftsmen and traders access to a wider system of patronage that would probably have remained closed to them as individuals.21 Although patronage has not been a central theme of most studies of ancient collegia, its importance is generally recognised, and a handful of modern studies have discussed the subject, usually from an Italian or a western perspective. 22 Patterson shows how patronage relationships helped to integrate the upper ranks of the plebs more fully into the Italian city, and also reveals the remarkable similarity between the benefactions made to collegia and those intended for the city.23 Clemente's study, which is largely descriptive, shows that patronage of collegia was an important social phenomenon in Italy, and one that was fully integrated into a much wider network of patronage relationships. Patronage of eastern collegia, on the other hand, is more or less uncharted territory. Clemente's study accords the eastern provinces only a few pages, in which he concludes that patronage of associations never developed in these provinces. This view appears to be based on two false premises. The first is that the fenomeno associativo never developed in the Roman East, a view which the present study

18Qn this point, see Wallace-Hadrill (1989 b), 84. l 9Cf. Garnsey and Woolf (1989), 156-158. 20Garnsey and Woolf (1989), 161. Cf. already Waltzing (1895-1990) I, 430. 21Garnsey and Saller (1987), 156-158; Purcell (1987), 40. 22Clemente (1971); see also Levi (1985). 23Patterson (n.d.), (1993) and (1994).

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refutes; the second is that patronage was generally unknown, or at least avoided, in the Greek world. 24 The latter point demands further attention. At a first glance it seems quite true that the idea of patronage was not compatible with the spirit of the Greek polis, with its ideology of isonomia and equal access to the collective resources of the polis for all citizens. The idea of being known as someone else's man may appear to be one that would not have been palatable to the ancient Greeks. But to which ancient Greeks? Are we talking about the vociferous citizens of classical Athens, with their professed dislike of aristocratic generosity and the patronage relationships that it entailed, or do we also mean the citizens and other inhabitants of the countless other Greek poleis? It is important not to be seduced by the Athenocentric bias of our sources. The further away we get from classical Athens, in either time or space, the more unwise it becomes to write off the possibility of patronage. 25 It should also be stressed that patronage was never entirely absent from Athens

itself.26 Before the establishment of the misthophoria, prominent Athenian politicians such as Kirnon were known for the large-scale liberalities to their fellow demesmen that assured them of political support. For them patronage was a way of life, a political ploy, a way of supporting the poor and a political model. The democratic system, with its isonomic ideology, was hostile to patronage, and took active steps against it by providing alternatives, or by incorporating generosity into the democratic framework in the form of liturgies. Even after the reforms of the 460s BC (which introduced, amongst other things, attendance fees for participants in political life), however, the ancient model persisted, and aristocrats continued to be benefactors to their followers. Patronage may have enjoyed only a 'vestigial and peripheral existence',27 but it remained attractive to (oligarchic) political thinkers, and even the democratic state could not avoid employing it as a model for some of its institutions. 2s This was, of course, to be expected. We should realise, along with Bloch, that:29

24CJemente (1971), 156-158. The term 'avoidance' is used by Millett in his contribution to WallaceHadrill ( 1989). 25See Wallace-Hadrill (1989 a), 8-9, and Cartledge (1987), 139-159. 26Cf. Finley (1983), 39-47, and Millett (1989), 23-25, 36, who points out that although patronage did occur, it was marginal and peripheral. 27Mi1Jett (1989), 37. 28Qn the persistence of an archaic model of generosity in the institution of sitesis (the public entertaining of prominent citizens and foreigners), see Schmitt-Pante) (1992), part 2. 29BJoch (1967), 147-148.

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To seek a protector, or to find satisfaction in being one - these things are common to all ages. But we seldom find them giving rise to new legal institutions save in civilisations where the rest of the social framework is giving way.

Bloch was talking about late antique Gaul, and he was seeking to explain the origins of feudalism, a different kind of exchange relation, but his observation is still helpful. Perhaps what matters is not whether patronage existed in the Greek world (it probably did - and still does - everywhere), but rather how important it was as a social strategy. 3 Certain social changes would have been capable of magnifying its

°

importance to such an extent as to make it not just one of many ways of doing things, but the most effective (and virtually legitimate) way of achieving one's aims and even of running society. Did any such changes occur in post-classical Greece? Under Hellenistic rulers and Roman governors, the post-classical polis developed into a less than equal society. Other status groups appeared alongside citizens, and gained in importance; increasing oligarchisation rendered isonomy a farce, which may have prepared the ground for an increasing tolerance towards patronage. Moreover, the arrival of Roman citizens such as traders who had their own patrons, or more probably the presence of more influential examples such as the governors and other officials who offered themselves as patrons of the city, must have given patronage the respectability it had earlier lacked. It can easily be demonstrated that the plural urban societies of the Roman East did not balk at singling out individuals for their extraordinary generosity, or for their successful protection or intercession - the traditional duties of a patron. Honorific inscriptions contain a wide variety of terms that can be translated as 'patron', although it is true that Greek terms for clientes are much more rare.31 The terminology of these inscriptions, or much of it, is also integral to the commemoration of civic benefactors, or euergetai. This leads us to a second model.

30Cf. Johnson and Dandeker (1989), esp. p. 220; Saller (1982), 3. 31E.g. ananeotes, defensor, ekdikos, epimeletes (plus cognates), epistates, euergetes, philos, kedemon, ktistes, pater, patron, philabarsakos, philoteimos, proegoros, prostates, soter and tropheus, to name only titles that we find in honorific inscriptions set up by private associations. Sailer's study of the vocabulary of patronage shows how common euphemism was, esp. vis-a-vis clients: Saller (1982), 721. Recent studies of Greek tenninology for Roman patronage are Touloumakos ( 1988), 304-324, on city patronage (cf. SEG 38, 1976), and Ameling (1989), 99 n. 11 (cf. SEG 39, 1173), who discusses the equivalence of the expressions euergetes kai patron and euergetes kai soter. The Greek tenninology for clients is more limited, cf. Mason (1974): the tenns kolax and pelates are attested to, and KALEVS appears as a description for the Roman institution (in the sense of 'the Romans call it x'), but does not become part of an authentic Greek tenninology.

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2. Civic euergetism is another model which may help us to understand the honorific practices of private associations in the Roman East. The work ofVeyne and Gauthier has established the importance of euergetism in the civic life of the post-classical polis.32 Euergetism has been defined by Gauthier as:33 !'action, !'influence et le prestige des notables, citoyens et etrangers, au sein des cites.

and by Paul Veyne, who more or less invented euergetism as a subject for historical investigation, as:34 le fait que Jes collectivites (cites, colleges ... ) attendait des riches qu'ils contribuassent de leurs deniers aux depenses publiques, et que leur attente n'etait pas vaine: Jes riches y contribuaient spontanement ou de bon gre.

Both authors stress the civic character of euergetism: its true object is an undivided city, its true study the relationship between the class of notables and the urban plebs as a whole. Making distinctions amongst the plebs, or demos, by according preferential treatment to this or that group, would have clashed with the essence of euergetism. 35 Private associations do not seem to have remained unaffected by civic euergetism. We shall see below that many honorific inscriptions set up by these groups praised civic benefactors in the same language as that used in the decrees and honorific martyria set up by the city's official institutions; public decrees, moreover, occasionally praise civic euergetai for their benefactions to professional associations. The two spheres were apparently not as separate as we might have expected. Veyne concedes this point when he writes:36 Dans l'Antiquite hellenistique et romaine, oil le phenomene associatif etait tres repandu, ii s'est developpe un evergetisme du club qui ne tirait pas plus

a consequence que chez nous et dont nous

parlerons qu'incidemment.

We can go rather further than this: the ancient sources appear to offer no support for any conceptual distinction between generosity towards cities and generosity

32Tue basic studies are Veyne (1985), with Andreau, Schmitt and Schnapp (1978) and the review by Garnsey of the abridged English translation, Veyne (1990): Garnsey (1991), and Gauthier (1985). 33Gauthier (1985), I. 34Veyne (1976), 20. 35Veyne's idea that euergetism was not specially directed towards subgroups (the poor or collegia) is challenged by Rogers (1991 b), 97. 36Veyne (1976), 26.

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towards smaller groups such as civic subdivisions and collegia such as that claimed to have existed by Andreau, Schmitt and Schnapp:37 qu'est-ce-que la definition de l'evergetisme, si Jes auteurs grecs et latins ne distinguent pas par example Jes dons prives faits

a des

sous-groupes (colleges, sodalites) des dons attribues

a la

collectivite des citoyens.

In fact, as we shall see below, euergetism appears to have provided private

associations with a language in which to describe their relationships with private benefactors and even with generous officials. 3. We can conclude that the honorific language used by private associations referred to two similar forms of unequal exchange. Like individuals, associations could enter into personal relationships with powerful patrons; like cities, they could expect to be in line for the large-scale generosity of magnanimous euergetai. For my purposes, it seems unnecessary to try to distinguish between the two phenomena: we are talking not of a fixed point in the continuum between individual patronage and civic euergetism, but of a broad central band of social relations, marked by unequal exchange and commemorated in the same language. My analysis of the social relations that lay behind the honorific inscriptions of collegia will therefore make free use of concepts and insights derived from the study of both private patronage and civic euergetism. My discussion will follow two routes. In the first part of this chapter I shall adopt a socioeconomic approach: that is, I shall examine evidence concerning the kinds of goods and services exchanged, and the kind of benefactions received by collegia. I shall principally be asking how much support patrons offered to collegia in pursuit of their economic interests, but I shall also discuss the contribution of patrons to the main areas of collegium sociability. I do not, however, think it sufficient to approach inscriptions only as evidence of social and economic history, as passive reflections of specific social relationships. Inscriptions were also active elements in such relationships; they helped to create and shape the experiences and expectations of the people involved in them. In the second part of this chapter, therefore, I shall look at the honorific practices of which inscriptions are both the product and, at the same time, a constituent element. My aim is to try to recapture something of what this practice meant to the members of private collegia. 37 Andreau, Schmitt and Schnapp (1978), 309, cf. 313, and Sartre (1991), 156.

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WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM THEIR FRIENDS: THE MATERIAL BENEFITS OF PATRON AGE The honorific language of inscriptions served to present certain relationships in socially acceptable terms. Inscriptions were not designed to be specific: euphemism and double-speak were, in fact, part and parcel of the honorific vocabulary. Some of these texts nonetheless indicate to us the sort of benefits associations may have expected to derive from these relationships. These benefits pertained to three domains which were not entirely separate from one another. Patrons and benefactors were expected to cover the costs, or some of the costs, of sociability; they assisted collegium members in their economic pursuits, and as power-brokers and advocates they acted as mediators in the associations' relationships with the city and the Roman state. Economic assistance

The honorific language of professional associations, though stylised and formulaic, was not completely unaffected by the language of the marketplace. Behind the flattery and compliments to magistrates and benefactors, the references to their moral rectitude or their lavish generosity, we occasionally find traces of more mundane concerns, connected with the ways in which the members of professional associations earned their living. It has become the accepted orthodoxy that ancient collegia did not resemble medieval guilds, and did little to protect their economic interests. It is also widely accepted that as a rule members of the Roman urban elites were not economically involved in craft production or trade. 38 I have no intention of challenging this view systematically, or of attempting to reformulate the 'modernist' position on the ancient economy that Finley argued against. 39 However, as I have pointed out in the Introduction, the primitivist position regarding the economic activities of ancient collegia requires adjustment, since it can be demonstrated that economic concerns were by no means absent from the minds of collegium members. In this chapter I shall investigate the importance of patronage to these economic activities, and try to 38Tuis 'primitivist' orthodoxy has been formulated most influentially by M.I. Finley i.a. in Finley (1981) and (1985). 39My own views on the nature of the ancient economy are close to the intermediate position advocated by i.a. Hopkins (1983 a) and Pleket (1990 b). Many of Finley's arguments against a modernising view of the ancient economy are correct; however, it seems to me that Finley's approach led him to exaggerate contrasts with the pre-industrial economies of medieval and early modern Europe. As a result of this, less attention was paid in his work to the complexities and achievements of the Roman economy.

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ascertain whether there is any evidence that patronage relationships were used as a dignified front for the involvement of members of the urban elites in the business affairs of associations. I shall also be asking whether associations used patronage relationships to obtain economic advantages and privileges.

1. Patrons and benefactors frequently assisted collegia in their clientela by supplying them with infrastructural essentials of their trade. Workshops and trading places were provided; special channels, aqueducts and harbour facilities were constructed and maintained. Infrastructural measures of this sort often appeared as part of a whole range of collective benefactions to a city and a collegium. This often makes it difficult to decide whether any given piece of construction work was designed as a benefaction to a specific collegium, or as an act of euergetism towards the city as a whole. 4 0 In many cases it must have been perceived as both. When a collegium explicitly mentions a benefaction in an honorary inscription, however, we can assume that its members saw it as particularly advantageous to them. The works of M. Fulvius Publicianus Nikephoros, who lived in Ephesos in the third century, give us a fairly good idea of the range of benefactions euergetai could make. 41 Publicianus had held the highest civic magistracies, including the prytany; he had also been Asiarch, becoming an advocatus fisci under Severus Alexander. He was clearly a man of wealth and importance in Ephesos. Two honorific inscriptions for him have survived, both set up by associations. The first has not survived in its entirety, but it seems to have been inscribed by a professional association. 42 In the second, he is honoured by the 'cloth-dealers of the agora' for having adorned their homeland with 'many great buildings'. 43 The terminology is vague, undoubtedly on purpose, in order to hide mundane details and thus give the benefactions greater dignity, but it is possible to get some impression of Publicianus' building activities. He had been responsible for one, possibly two, 'kouretes-inscriptions', and for three honorific statues dedicated to senior colleagues in the imperial service. 44 These, 401 shall return to these embedded benefactions below. 4lfor a discussion of his career and references to his epigraphic record, see Knibbe (1985). 42IK 13, 679 (lines 7-10) ... [ypa]µ[µ]aTEUoVTos T~S auvdpya-11 [a[as Aup]T]/..[ou MT]voowpou TTEVTclKl I 'ApTEµt8wpou I [rr]aTp6s, rrcirrrrou ~ou/..EuTwv. If auv~[pyaa[as] is the correct reading, we are dealing with a welcome example of social mobility by means of membership of collegia in the East. The father was secretary of a collegium, while his son(s) and grandson(s) belonged to the boule. 43IK 17. l, 3063 (ol EV Ti.\ ciyop(i rrpayµaT[Eu]6µEVOl ). 44IK 14, 1087, and perhaps 1080 are 'kouretes inscriptions'. IK 13, 632 and IK 13, 739 are honorific inscriptions on statue bases for the imperial procuratores Calpurnius Verus and Vipsanius Caecilianus Axius respectively. Publicianus describes each as his patron (euergetes). The former procurator C. lulius Philippus is honoured by him for his benevolence to their common city: IK 17.1, 3049.

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Honorific Practices

however, were hardly the 'many great constructions' referred to by the cloth-dealers; we are looking for large-scale public buildings. We know that Publicianus was responsible for two large construction projects. The more impressive one resulted in the southern harbour gate, a public building which Publicianus had constructed at his own expense. 4S The commercial importance of the Ephesian harbour was considerable, and professional associations would certainly have had an interest in its maintenance and embellishment; traders might well have honoured him for carrying out this project. However, we know that Publicianus' direct dealings with at least seven, and probably more, of the professional collegia were a result of another large-scale intervention in the city's commercial geography. Trade could take place in various parts of ancient cities: in the harbour, in special commercial zones (emporia), 4 6 in sanctuary precincts, 4 7 in temporary stalls, 48 in more permanent buildings in the agora, and even in shops built in gymnasia and other public buildings. Most small-scale production and trade, however, took place in the many small shops that were scattered around the town. These workshops were often located along plateiai, the monumental avenues, bordered by arcades, that were a standard feature of the urban landscapes of the Roman East. 49 Being on a main street had obvious commercial advantages, but the transformation of streets into showcases for a new display architecture had symbolic advantages as well. Trading places were allocated not according to custom, but under the regulation of the urban authorities. The Marble Street in Ephesos, between the theatre and the stadium, was no exception. It was not only a main artery of communication, but also, as the setting for numerous religious processions, a key element of the city's symbolic geography.so The old byway had already been fully integrated into the layout of the city during the Hellenistic rebuilding, but its transformation into a monumental avenue with arcades only began in the first century AD, reaching completion in the second. In the third century reconstruction works were necessary, probably as a result of fire or an earthquake.st M. Fulvius 4SJK 17.1, 3086.

46for the history of emporia in the ancient world, see Bresson and Rouillard (1993). 47 As in the Samian Heraion; see SEG 27, 545. 48See below, in Chapter 3. For a list of monthly rent payments for market stalls by mKUOrrw>-.m (cucumber sellers), see P. Koln 4, 195 (second/third century AD). 49For a discussion of the epigraphical evidence concerning these 'avenues bordees de colonnades', and their associations, see Robert (1980), 151-159. 50for a description, for its relevance for the symbolic geography of the city and for the Artemis ~rocession of Vibius Salutaris, see Rogers (1991 a), 100-106. I It is not very likely that the reconstruction was the consequence of a desire to put up a more grandiose building than already existed: the quality of the materials and of the inscriptions was too poor.

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85

Publicianus Nikephoros was in charge of the reconstruction of the colonnades that ran along the street, and probably financed it out of his own pocket.5 2 At this time he allocated the places between the arcade's columns ( diastyla) to several professional associations. Each place was marked by an inscription such as this one: 53 To Good Fortune. M. Publicianus Nikephoros, loyal citizen of the emperor and Asiarch and prytanis awarded two places between the columns as a favour to the association of askomisthoi.

In total he allocated at least 18 diastyla to one unknown and seven known associations, representing a cross-section of Ephesian trades. 54 The most prominent Ephesian trade association, that of the silversmiths, apparently had no outlet on this street. The silversmiths honoured other Ephesians as patrons, but did not usually list their benefactions in detaiJ.55 However, an honorific inscription for the proconsul Valerius Festus provides some information about the nature of his benefactions, praising him for his building activities in Ephesos and in the rest of Asia. 56 Special mention was made - albeit in somewhat cryptic form - of his activities in the harbour, 'which he had enlarged more than Croesus had done'. 57 It was in relation to this that the silversmiths hailed him as their own 'saviour and

benefactor'. The silversmiths' interest in the harbour should be seen against the background of the economic importance of the 'tourist trade' to this group. An episode in the New Testament, already discussed in the Introduction, shows that the sale of statuettes of the goddess Artemis to pilgrims was an important source of income to the silversmiths, one which they were prepared to defend by force if necessary.58 The 52Knibbe (1985), 72-73. 53 IK 12, 444( auvEpyaaic.r {s} ciaKOµ[a8wv ). The meaning of askomisthoi (Latin: utricularii) is not completely clear. They probably handled (produced or rented out) leather containers for the transport of wine and other liquids: Wahrmann (1934). It is also possible that they used bags of this sort as rafts for river transport; cf. BE (1964 ), 495. See Knibbe ( 1985). 54Knibbe (1985), 73. In addition to the places for askomisthoi, he assigned to the auvEpyaaia iEpou yEuµaTOS' (IK 16, 2076), which was probably identical to the auvEpyaaia lEpcji olv1wcii yEuµan (Knibbe (1985), 71, no. l = SEG 35, 1109), the purveyors of sacred wine, two diastyla. The auvEpyaaia rnuptvci8lw (cobblers?), got four (IK 16, 2080, 2081); the auvEpyaa[a ~a>.avewv rrpE~ciTwv Twv ev 'Efolp (the managers of private bath-houses in Ephesos), one diastylon (IK 16, 2078); the auvEpyaaia rrup11vci8wv ('knob-turners'), two diastyla (IK 16, 2079); the Kavva~cipLOL oi ev Ti.i LEp~ELA[ou aToi,i (hempworkers of the Stoa Servilia), two (IK 12, 445); the ElatKt[ciptOL] (sausage-sellers), three (Knibbe (1985), 71, no. 2 = SEG 35, 1110); and an unknown association (IK 16, 2082) two. IK 16, 2077 was also a place inscription, but both the name of the association and the number of places have been lost. 55E.g. IK 13, 636: Claudius Acilius Julius, prostates of the silversmiths, of senatorial family, and his wife were honoured by the holy college of the silversmiths. 56 SEG 34, 1094 ( ol cipyupox6ot ). 57for this interpretation, see Pleket ( 1990 a}, 191. 58Acts 19; Pleket (1990 a), 195-1196; Horsley (1979), 7-10, which also lists the other texts referring to the Ephesian silversmiths. See also below, Chapter 6.

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Honorific Practices

reconstruction and maintenance of adequate harbour facilities, which guaranteed a flow of pilgrims, was therefore a matter of concern to them. Seeking popularity amongst the local population by means of this style of benefaction was not, however, always a good career move for potential benefactors. The proconsul Barea Soranus, who was seen as being too friendly with the provincials, incurred the hatred of the emperor Nero because of 'the care he had spent upon clearing the harbour of Ephesos'. 59 Whether the Ephesians rewarded him with a statue we do not know; if they did, it has not survived. I have found one further example of professional groups thanking a magistrate for his efforts to improve the harbour facilities. 60 This is an honorific inscription, on a statue base, for a certain Theophrastos son of Herakleitos, who was the Athenian epimeletes of the island of Delos. It praises him for building the harbour's agora and chomata (quays). The statue was set up by several groups that were active on the island: the Athenian residents, the emporoi, the naukleroi and the parepidemountes of the Romans and other xenoi. Together they praised Theophrastos for his arete, kalokagathia and euergesia towards them. Evidence of benefactors and patrons supplying essential infrastructure to professional groups also comes from other, smaller, cities. An honorific inscription set up by the 'city of the Antigoneans' (Mantineia in Arcadia)6 1 and the resident Roman traders for a married couple of euergetai, Euphrosynos and Epigone, gives an impressive list of their benefactions to the city. 62 Husband and wife appear to have competed with each other to shower a range of benefactions upon the city and its traders.63 They built temples with banquet halls, including special banquet halls for associations. They also provided funds with which to organise banquets. Their most impressive act of generosity, however, at least in the eyes of the authors of the inscription - the excavator of Mantineia was not so impressed - consisted of the

59Tacitus Annales 16.23 (ET QUIA PORTUI EPHESIORUM APERIENDO CURAM INSUMPSERAT). Cf. Horsley (1989), 101. Silting up of the harbour was a natural process, but the problem was aggravated by the activities of professional groups: a decree of 161-162 AD, issued by the Roman proconsul L. Antonius Albus, was directed against the importers of wood and marble (ol Ta ~uAa Kai ol TOUS" W:lous- EVTTOpEuoµEvot) who stored wood and sawed their marble on the quays : 'For the first cause damage to the pillars which were constructed for the protection of the harbour by the weight of their cargoes, and the latter, by throwing in the emery ... fill up the riverbed and block the stream; both categories obstruct the traffic on the quay' (IK 11.1, 23). 601. Delos, 1645 (second century BC). 61 Between 221 BC and the reign of Hadrian Mantineia was called Antigoneia; see RE s. v. Mantineia, col. 1291. 62IG 5.2, 268. 63Lines 34-3: ... SrivovTES" 8' riAAtjAous- rn'is Eis- Eu[nolas-] Emvo[ms-.

Honorific Practices

87

construction of a market hall and the embellishment of the agora, all described in language so richly rhetorical that its exact meaning is not immediately obvious: 64 ... a lavish market hall (macellum)65 was elevated from the foundations, delineating the self-sufficient beauty of workshops, and in its midst an exedra was established, strong and to be a unique adornment of the city. To these was added as an extension the serviceable advantage of a baite66 which defeats the weather in winter, a colonnade sealed their lavishness, built around it with marble pillars, the beauty of which also adorned the rest of the agora even more ...

The construction of a market hall, which replaced temporary stalls on the agora, permitted the traders to do business in any weather conditions, which must have boosted their turnover. The authors, however, preferred to extol the building's aesthetic effect rather than its commercial uses. Reticence about the exact function of (commercial) buildings can also be observed in an honorific inscription set up by the Palmyrene wool-traders in Koptos: 67 ... [for] the saintly and just Zabdalas, son of Salmanos, also known as Aneinas (?), belonging to the Hadrianic Palmyrene naukleroi of the Red Sea. He has completely rebuilt from the foundations upwards, the propylaeum, the three colonnades and the gates, all at his own expense. The Hadrianic Palmyrene wool-traders, for their friend because of his good friendship.

Zabdalas' benefactions involved the construction of a propylaeum, arcades and gates. Bernand argues that the buildings worked on belonged to the association of wool-traders. 68 The precise nature of the buildings is not clear, but it is possible that the benefactor constructed a sort of commercial complex consisting of an arcade with trading places and shops.69 The thyromata (gates or doors) may have given access to workshops at the back of the arcade; 70 the construction work done by Publicianus in Ephesos demonstrates that this arrangement was a usual one. 1 1

64Lines 45-51: ... µciKEAAOS EK 9eµEALWV utjloiiTo TTOAUTEATjS, Epyaoµevos KQAAOVTjv, EVL8pUETO I 8' QUTOLS E~E8pa rEal], 8uvaµEvl] Kat µOVI] TTOAEWS Ko-jaµos eivav rrpoaeµl]KUVETO 8' auTo'ls Kat ~a(TT]S EUXPT]CJTOS cirroAauaLs xtµEptov KaTciCJTT]µa VLKw-jal]s. errw4>pay(aaTo 8' avTwv T~v rroAUTEAdav rrepL-!aTUAOV µapµap(vms €rrepL86µevv KELooLv, ~ KaA-jAov~ Kai To AEmov ETL T~S ciyop(is KEKOOµl]KE Kal Ta µfrpL 8' auTwv eTvm 8oKoiiVTa rrpos auvKpLaLv ... See the comments of the ed. pr. Fougeres (1896), 131. 65for a discussion of mace/la, see De Ruyt (1983). 66for this rare word, see Cossage (1959), 12-13: it means a basilica or some other covered public building in the market, perhaps with special arrangements for heating, to be used in bad weather. 67SEG 34, 1593 W A]8pwvol TlaAµUpl]vot ep~-jEµrropOL ). See also below, note 137. 68Bernand ( 1985). 691fie building may also have contained a clubhouse. 70Bernand (1985), 83. 71See also Robert (1949), 32-34.

wv

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Alternatively, the buildings may have had civic or religious functions; parallel cases are not wanting here either. 72 It should be pointed out that a decision to rebuild part of a city and (re-) allocate trading space to various occupational groups was not always received favourably by

the groups involved. Dio Chrysostom knew from experience that the construction of splendid commercial buildings did not always meet with general enthusiasm: his building plans for a portico and a row of ergasteria in the city of Prousa were not well received by his fellow councillors. The professional groups involved, in particular the smiths (chalkeis) protested, as Dio's proposals included the demolition of some workshops, creating just the kind of rioting that the Roman authorities wanted to suppress. Dio was shocked. Had he succeeded, however, he could have expected to be honoured in the sort of way I have just described. 73 A different type of building activity consisted of the construction of channels and aqueducts. It is, of course, well known that the large-scale construction of aqueducts and channels to provide cities with water from external sources was a major achievement of the early Imperial period. In earlier periods it would have been practically impossible to build aqueducts, as they would have had to cross the boundaries between different poleis. In wartime they would have been vulnerable, and in peacetime they would still have served as a reminder of a city's dependence on external resources. In the Imperial period all this had changed, and thus aqueducts ranked high amongst the monuments that rendered visible a city's prosperity and status. They fed important elements of a city's prestige architecture, in particular baths and gymnasia, as well as monumental fountains and nymphaea. They were a potent symbol of a city's grandeur: one of Pausanias' jibes against the small city of Panopeus in Phokis was that it laid claim to polis status without even having a proper aqueduct. 14 Nevertheless, local benefactors appear to have been lukewarm about aqueducts, being usually more interested in the high-profile urban constructions they served than in the costly and less noticeable channels that ran through the countryside. Imperial involvement appears in consequence to have been more frequent here than in other aspects of the rebuilding of the Greek East. Concern for civic pride and civic health is usually seen as having led to the construction of aqueducts, but other considerations may have played a part as well. An honorific inscription set up by the dyers of Thyateira praises Marcus son of

72For a cautious view, cf. Bingen in BE (1988), 975. 73 See Dio Chrysostom 40.8-9, Jones (1978), 111-114, and Mitchell (1993), 202. 74Pausanias 10.4.1.

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Menander who supervised (and presumably paid for) the construction of an aqueduct. 75 This benefaction was part of a long series of public construction works that Marcus supervised, suggesting that the aqueduct was presented in the first place as a public amenity. It is very likely, however, that the dyers had a special reason for mentioning this channel in their inscription. Dyers and fullers used large amounts of water in their trade, and their needs may have stretched the water supply of a city to its limits. The construction of a new aqueduct would therefore obviously have been in their interests. An additional point is that the waste water produced by fullers and dyers was malodorous and often heavily polluted. The practical solution was to concentrate these smelly businesses on the edge of town, preferably downstream, so as to minimise nuisance from them. As we shall see, this is what happened in Antioch. It is possible that the dyers of Thyateira were also concentrated outside the city, close to the river.76 Thyateira was known in antiquity for the quality of its madder, and it may have been a textile centre of at least regional importance. 77 As a result, the dyers of that city were a numerous and fairly prominent group, if we are to judge by their high profile in the city's epigraphic record. The fact that their patron was seen to be altering the city's infrastructure on their behalf must have helped to establish their credentials as a socially important group. A special fullers' channel built by the Syrian city of Antioch in 73174 AD must have had an even more dramatic impact upon the urban landscape and upon the minds of the population, since its construction involved the conscripted labour of

75TAM 5.2, 991, I. 12 sqq: EpyrntaTci-l[n1Jv ... rrapaTELX[aµaTO$ u8pa-jywy[ov EV Tl~ AUK(\J lTOTaµcji. 76The inscription was found not in the town, but in the modern village of Meder near the river Lykos, which suggests that the dyers' operations did not take place in the city centre, but downstream. Archaeologists have discovered the rests of an aqueduct leading from the mountains (where the source of the river Lykos was) through the city to the plain and river. It is not clear, however, that our text refers to this aqueduct. A problem remains with the exact meaning of EV Tcji rroTaµcji, which suggests a canalisation of the Lykos, rather than an aqueduct leading to it. There is no evidence, however, that the river was ever canalised. It is possible that a diversion of the river was constructed especially for the use of the dyers. Cf. Weber (1905), 203-4, and Schuchardt (1912), 143. Some more evidence concerning the construction of aqueducts and channels in Thyateira has been published since. Fragments of an inscription set up by the Thyateirans in Athens for the emperor Hadrian mention rwv iJBciTwv ci[ywytj] (TAM 5.2, 1180, 11. 22/3). This suggests that imperial permission and perhaps a financial contribution had been obtained. A fragment of an inscription found in a village near Thyateira, published by Petz) in 1976 (now TAM 5.2, 868), mentions the construction by village elders (under the supervision of a logistes of the city) of a water inlet (Elaaywy~ mu u8aTo$) and an [EpyaaT]tjptov; cf. BE (1977), 450. There is no proof that this was a dyers' workshop, but it would fit the picture nicely. 77See Pleket (1988), 29-37, and also Pleket (1990 b), 148.

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many of the citizens.78 The dossier concerning this work, published by Feissel, consists of two similar stelai, both beginning with the same formula and going on to list the names of the citizens of Antioch who were called up to do part of the digging as a munus sordidum. I quote from stele A: Under Imperator Titus Flavius Caesar Augustus,79 Imperator Titus Caesar and Domitianus Caesar, sons of Augustus. Under the supervision of Marcus Ulpius Trajanus, 80 the legate of Caesar Augustus, the metropolis of the Antiocheians carried out the construction of a fullers' channel and of the locks for the conduits of the same river, by its plintheia81 in the year 122.82 From the Orontes until the floodgate(?)83 at the foot of the Amanos the channel is 14 stadia long by 41 square feet.8 4 Every plintheion received an order for the same amount of work, reckoned by the number of men in proportion to length, width and depth (of the channel). And each plintheion shall take care that the section on which it worked will remain as clean as when they delivered it. On this stele are listed the rest of the names of (the plintheion) of Archiereus Damas: for a length of 33 1/2, 114 feet; of the (plintheion) ofBagadates: 38 1/4 feet (etc.) ... in total 720 feet.

The construction of the channel was a massive operation. Its total length was 2.5km, and a total of 9,00Qm3 of earth had to be dug out - this is an indication of the enormous amounts of water required by the fullers. It seems justifiable to conclude that a specialised 'industrial area' was constructed on the edge of the town. The most striking aspect of the project, however, is the complexity of its organisation and the wide range of people involved. The work was carried out under the supervision of the Roman proconsul. 85 Pliny's letters to Trajan testify to the keen interest that the Roman imperial authorities sometimes took in the water supply of provincial cities, no doubt partly because of worries about the financial complications that might arise from such undertakings. 86 The city of Antioch may simply have been obliged to ask the proconsul for approval of its plans. However, it is likely that referring to the imperial authorities was also intended to lend dignity to the project. It is, moreover,

78 Feissel (1985), esp. 89; see also SEG 35, 1483 and AnnEpigr (1985), 694. 791.e. Vespasian. 80Jbe father of the later emperor. 81 Blocks of houses or neighbourhoods. 821.e. year 122 of the era of Caesar, which started in 49 BC. 83Tue W·'.'rd used is Civm yµa (opening). 841.e. a length of about 2.5 kilometres, a width of 2.5 metres, and a depth of 1.5 metres. 85Tue same M. Ulpius Trajanus was responsible for the construction of a channel in Seleukeia Pieria between 73174 and 79 AD (SEG 35, 1522). The digging was done by soldiers. He was also responsible for the construction of an aqueduct in Smyrna in 79/80 AD (IK 24. I, 680 and 681 ). The main beneficiary of this aqueduct was the temple of Zeus Akraios, which needed the water for cult activities. 86Cf. Coulton (1987), esp. 81.

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highly significant that the construction was set up as a civic project, requiring the requisitioned labour of a large number of the city's inhabitants. The dossier's editor estimates that 200 of the city's total of 1,400 plintheia were involved. The amount of labour requisitioned was carefully calculated and recorded in the inscription, and twelve similar inscriptions were set up along the channel, recording the name of the proconsul who authorised the project and those of the civic units that contributed the labour. Each inscription, however, also served as a clear reminder of the fact that this massive project was designed to cater to the needs of one particular occupational group: the city's fullers. It is not easy to find another example of a public document so openly connecting the reorganisation of the urban landscape with the interests of an occupational group. The building of other aqueducts in the Roman East cannot be connected to the interests of any particular occupational group,87 but a possible parallel can be found in Cemenelum in Alpes Maritimae, near modern Nice.88 Here an honorific inscription was set up by the collegia tria (fabri, dendrophori and centonarii) to thank a patron for repairing an aqueduct. It is, however, questionable whether these associations represented purely occupational interests, and it is probably most sensible to assume that they perceived the aqueduct primarily as a civic benefaction. 89 We shall see below that in many cases honorific inscriptions set up by associations for civic benefactors made no reference to any particular advantages derived by the members of the associations involved, instead simply referring to building activities in general terms ( erga ). 90 It is not always possible to establish whether or not collegia enjoyed any specific advantages as a result of building work

87Cf. IGR 4, 1653, set up by a katoikia. 88 CIL 5, 7881 = ILS 1367. (QUOD AQUAE USUM VETUSTATE LAPSUM REQUISITUM AC REPERTUM SAECULI FELICITATE CURSUI PRISTINO REDDIDERIT). He had also made a substantial contribution to the city's food supply. 89 If centonarii were involved in the production of blankets, or in the sale of second-hand clothing, as was recently suggested by Kloft (1994), they would have needed water for production or cleaning purposes, while carpenters and wood-merchants may have used water-driven mills. If they were responsible for fire-fighting activities, as many modern scholars believe, a good supply of water would obviously have been important to them. For my views on the identities of these groups, see below Chapter 4. 90IGR 4, 907: an honorific inscription set up by the cobblers of Lycian Kibyra for a benefactor who constructed demosia erga; SEG 7, 826 and 827 (from Gerasa, third century AD): two inscriptions for the same man, one set up by the hiera techne of linyphoi (linen-weavers), the other by the boule, thanking him for his erga; TAM 5.2, 966 (from Thyateira): artokopoi (bakers) honour a local magistrate i.a. for his erga; TAM 5.2, 970: an honorific inscription set up by the boule for a magistrate who had supervised the building (EpyrnwrnTT\aavrn) of a Hiera Plateia; TAM 5.2, 978: an honorific inscription by the dyers for a magistrate and liturgists who had 'adorned the city with the construction of erga and generous tax-freedom' (€pywv civa0tjµamv Kal ciTEAE[L]c;t µEyaA6povt T~v TTUT[p[]&I KEKOOµTJKOTa).

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2. We have seen that in a number of cases the benefactors who supplied the associations with essential infrastructure were urban or even imperial magistrates. 91 It is not always obvious, however, that the construction activities were seen as an integral element of the honorand's function, or that they represented a private benefaction. The obfuscation of the fine line between private and 'ob honorem' generosity was, of course, an essential feature of the euergetic system of the imperial period. At the same time, however, civic magistrates and officials often crossed another line. Although magistrates were supposed to be impartial, and accessible to the entire city, there were plainly many ways in which they could be especially helpful to particular groups that were part of their unofficial clientela. In return for this, they could expect to be showered with all the honours that these groups had to offer. To us this looks like corruption, but in an empire which, in the words of Veyne, 'etait lui du baksheesh et du clientelisme',92 it may have been a not irrational solution to the problem of gaining access to the men who made decisions. We thus find quite a few inscriptions set up by professional associations and private groups for the civic magistrates responsible for the city's commercial operations; for example, the agoranomoi, emporiarchs, or officials in charge of foreign trade or traders. For example, the ferrymen who plied their trade between Erythrae, on the coast of Ionia, and the island of Chios set up honorific statues for the customs officials on Chios: 93 The ferrymen to Erythrae award a crown to the customs officials who were in office in the year of Decimus: Aphrodisios, son of Sarapion, Dionysios, son of Seleukos, Parasios, son of Heraiskos, for their virtuous attitude towards them.

This inscription was set up for the men who served as xenophylakes during one particular year. Other inscriptions suggest that the ferrymen set up inscriptions for each new team of customs officials. 94 Other officials of the harbour and market were accustomed to receive similar honours from the traders under their 'protection'. The cheirotechnai (artisans) honoured one [Nei]leus and his fellow archontes in this 91Qther examples are the second-century (AD) agoranomos ofTralleis, who had built marble stalls in the fish-market and was honoured by all the city's civic institutions (IK 36.l, 77), and the Roman proconsul C. Iulius Caesar (the father of the future dictator), who was honoured by the island's olearii (I. Delos 1712). Specific details are not given here, but another inscription (I. Delos 1847) shows that he dedicated a sekoma (a measuring device) in a harbour warehouse which was almost certainly used by the olearii. Other sekomata were dedicated by the island's Athenian epimeletai: I. Delos 18271829. Cf. Rauh (1993), 12-13. 92Veyne (1976), 102. 93JK 1, 74: (ol rrop9µEUoVTES Eis'Epu9pas). See below, for Cracco-Ruggini's suggestion that these men were personally involved in trade. 94Robert (1929 b), 35, no. A: (ol rrop9µE1s).

Honorific Practices

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manner,95 while the naukleroi and the ergastai (traders or shopkeepers) at the harbour offered golden crowns to the customs officials Apollonides, Theodoros, son of Philon, and [Sosi]genes, son of Sosigenes.96 Another official, Pamphilos, was honoured when in charge of the agora, although we do not know by whom.97 It appears to have been impossible to do business on Chios without the support of Neileus, Pamphilos, or some other semi-official racketeer: honorific monuments may have been the public face of personal corruption. 98 However, it is worth noting that all these benefactors were honoured for their moral and civic qualities; not a word was said about whatever specific (economic) advantages may have accrued to the collegia as a result of their protection. Chios was not the only city in which officials in charge of the agora or emporion were honoured by various types of association, but it was rare for officials to be honoured by a professional association during their terms of office. The bakers of Thyateira, for example, chose to honour a C. Julius lulianos Tatianos,99 at one stage an agoranomos and triteutes, a function which implied responsibility for the distribution of grain. too While holding these civic offices he may have forged a special relationship with the bakers of Thyateira, perhaps by providing them with free grain or financial assistance during a period when prices were high. IOI However, the inscription was set up much later, at the acme of his impressive civic career, which is listed in detail. The shoemakers of the same town dedicated an honorific inscription to a former agoranomos who had also been the curator of the Roman traders.102 The Roman traders of Hierapolis joined the boule, the demos, a youth association and other associations of unknown nature in honouring a local councillor who had also been curator Romanorum, i.e. an official in charge of the conventus of Roman traders.103 Each man was, however, thus honoured long after his year of

95Robert (1929 b), 36, no. C: (oi XELPOT€xvm). 96Robert (1929 b), 36-37, no. D: (oi vauKATJPOL Kaloi €rrl Toi! ALµ€vos- €py[cicrTm]). 97Robert (1929 b), 37, no. E. 98Cf. IG 12.8, 16, and Robert (1929 b), 32-35 and 38, no. F. 99-J'AM 5.2, 966 (oi cipTOKOlTOL). l~obert (1934), 51 =OMS 2, 1015. 101 An example of this practice is provided by an honorific decree of the Boiotian city of Akraiphia (Robert (1935) =OMS l, 279-293, II. 53-61), praising civic magistrates and benefactors i.a. for the fact that ' ... in addition they took on the agoranomy and responsibility for the oil supply, and to the traders, butchers and bakers, who used to provide the city with their services in a disorderly manner [i.e. they charged prices which fluctuated sharply], they offered assistance at their own expense, by giving grain to the bakers, and to the others they advanced money to use for a year without interest, as a result of which we had unfailing low prices ... '. 102TAM 5.2, 1002. 103Judeich (1898), no. 32.

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office, and his function in that office was mentioned only as part of a general survey of his career. Things were much the same in Ephesos: a fragment of an honorific inscription shows an unknown synergasia expressing its gratitude to an urban magistrate who came from a family of the highest rank. 104 He had been emporiarch at some stage in his career, which is detailed by the inscription, but he is unlikely still to have been emporiarch when the inscription was set up. Nor should we assume that this collegium was grateful only for one specific benefaction, received when this magistrate was emporiarch; it is more likely that the inscription was set up in recognition of his benevolence to the association throughout his life. A close and lasting relationship of some sort between an association and an emporiarch is suggested by an an epitaph from Aphrodisias.J05This modest stone shows a bearded man, with the text: [name?Il emporiarch, to the syntechnia of the linen-workers and the passers by: fare well. This text suggests that he expected the linen-workers to visit his tomb with some regularity. He may have expected gratitude for the services he had paid to them, while holding his office. 106 It is not unlikely however, that he had secured their attendance through the donation of a funerary foundation to the association.107

104sEG 34, 1107 (~ cruvEpyacria Twv tVEfo4> [- - - ]). 105 Reynolds (1995). A photograph of this inscription can be found on the jacket of this book. I would like to thank Prof. R.R.R. Smith, the current director of the Aphrodisias excavations for his permission to use this photograph. I also want to express my gratitude to Miss Reynolds who made this text available to me before publication. See also below, note 233. 106The word emporion was used in the context of local commercial geographies for that part of a town where the commercial activities of foreigners were concentrated, often under the supervision of specially appointed officials. See the various word-studies in Bresson and Rouillard (1993); a summary of the word's various meanings is in van Nijf (1995). There is no evidence to support the suggestion of Broughton (1959), 769 (mentioned by Pleket [1988], 35), that the word was used of a specialised cloth-hall. However, the importance attached by an association of textile producers to an official in charge of the emporion suggests that export trade may have been of considerable economic importance to them. A severely damaged inscription from Laodikeia (Ramsay [1895-1897] l, 74 no. 8 = CIG 3938 with different readings), also shows a connection between an emporion and several associations of textile producers. Ramsay's text: [civfoTT]CJ"EV TTAT]a[ov TOU] 'Evrrop[ou ? [ ~ €pyaa[a [rrotKt>.-JITwv yvacj>€[wv, ~a€wv Kat] I cirr>.oupy[w]v· [€mµEA1]9EvTos] I Tfjs civa[aTCiaews TOU &i:vos ...Tfjs vew-JIK6pou ... [Kat >.aµrrpoTewv E'pyou rro:\:\ciKLS Kal urrE:p Twv TEKVwv. 153TAM 5.2, 935; TAM 5.2, 965; TAM 5.2, 972; TAM 5.2, 978; TAM 5.2, 989; TAM 5.2, 991, where they are called ol f3au;>..fi Twv Epwupywv. 180see, for this practice, my remarks in Chapter 2. 181Waltzing (1895-1900) III, 147: ii lEpa cj>u;\fi Twv Ewv; SEG 29, 1186: ii ai!vo8os TWV TEKTovwv; SEG 29, 1191: auvEpyaa(a Twv AELvoupywv; SEG 29, 1195: ii auvEpyaa(a Twv m;\orrotwv; SEG 29, 1198: ii auvEpyaa(a Twv Eptopywv; SEG 31, 1026: ii TTAaTE'la Twv AELvoupywv; SEG 31, 1036: ii auvEpyaa(a Twv Atvopywv; SEG 32, 1234: ii auvEpyaa(a TWV Atvoupywv; SEG 33, 1017: TO 6µ6TEXVOV TWV ucj>aVTWV; SEG 33, 1018: ii TTAUTEia; SEG 40, 1088: ii auvEpyaa(a TWV Atvopywv; TAM 5.1, 79: ii TTAaTEia Twv (;\m (TAM 5.1, 93). The possibility cannot be excluded that some of these groups were also associations of craftsmen.

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neighbourhood, friendship, cult or family relations. Professional, social and religious categories of classification appear to have merged, and this also appears to have applied to political criteria. The fact that these groups used 'official'-sounding titles in public inscriptions (honorific dedications and seating inscriptions) suggests that these ties also had a political dimension. Inclusion in public (political) ritual shows that this was recognised and integrated into the city's political identity.

5. In several cities the banquets and distributions accompanying a civic festival included individuals who, and professional groups which, had contributed in one way or another to the festival's success. A prominent category of professionals closely connected with the festivals was, of course, the performing artists, 186 who were invited to take part in public banquets and distributions in quite a few cases. Several inscriptions from Carian Stratonikeia show that the priests who organised the festivals in the sanctuaries of Panamara and Lagina invited theatrikoi and technitai to them, along with a wide range of other recipients. l87 In Priene athletes and various members of their entourage, including physicians, masseurs and trainers, were listed alongside local ephebes at banquets organised by local benefactors.188 The various terms used of athletes and performers probably conceal a wide range of organisations, from modest local associations to prestigious 'world-wide' Dionysiac associations which were granted privileges by Hellenistic kings and Roman emperors alike. 189 The inclusion of associations of technitai in the banquets and distributions accompanying the festivals at which they performed can probably be seen not only as a reflection of their relatively privileged status in society, but also as a result of their professional contribution to the festival. In a few other cases a benefactor shows some appreciation of the contribution made by a professional group or groups to a festival. A first-century AD inscription from Mysian Kyzikos mentions distributions by the princess Antonia Tryphaina to her subjects and to foreign traders who had come for the panegyris. 190 The most striking example of this, however, is undoubtedly the honorific inscription for the l86Qn this group, see Pleket (1973) and Roueche (1993), 51 sqq. 187IK 21, 309; IK 22.l, 684; 685. 1881. Priene 111; 112; 118. l 89The Dionysiac association in Teos was invited to take part in a public banquet alongside the magistrates. The text was published by P. Herrmann in 1965; for a new edition of the text, see SEG 41, 1003: ... owE1vm EV TlJ ~µE[pq. TaUTlJ rrcivrns- Tous- TTJS- rr6A.Ews- cipxolvrns- rnl. Toils- rrEpl. [Tov AL6vuaov TEXVL ms- 1 ... An agonothete from Gerasa invited all the competitors to a banquet; see Robert (1939 b), 735-738. l90IGR 4, 144, I. 8-9: TTJL 5E EµuTwL LA.av9pwrr[q. rrpos- TE Toils- Evxwp[ous- Kal Toils- ~€vous­ Exptjaarn. The xenoi are identified as oi cirro TTJS' ['Acr[as- €pyaarnl.] evrropoL rnl. ~EVOL ol EATJAU96TES- ELS' TT}v rravtjyupLv. Cf. above, Chapter 2.

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benefactor Epaminondas of Akraiphia (Boiotia), which lists his generous acts towards the city. These included the resuscitation of a civic festival, during which he presented banquets and distributions to the 'entire city'. These were designed to express a political hierarchy, the 'entire city' being divided into groups ranging from magistrates to residents without citizenship, but they also included occupational groups that were involved in the festival. Epaminondas presented annual banquets to the magistrates and councillors, and a breakfast to the other citizens. After a few years he made a few alterations, adding a distribution of a basket of grain and a halfjug of wine to every citizen, incola and alien property-holder, and a procession during which the sons of the citizens and their male slaves were invited to breakfast (these categories were presumably involved in the procession). His wife did the same for the citizens' wives, daughters and female slaves. It is added that: l9l ... he did not leave out the booth-holders or the people who helped to set up the festival. He entertained them at breakfast privately after a proclamation, which no one else had done, none of his predecessors, for he did not wish anyone to be without a share in the favours that came from him.

As a final gesture, he extended his generosity to 'all the local spectators in the theatre' (presumably those without citizenship) and to 'those who had come from other cities'. To them he gave a glykismos (a collation of sweet wine), as well as presents (rhimmata) which were tossed out indiscriminately in the theatre, presumably to indicate the recipients' social equivalence within his scheme. 192 Epaminondas' distributions are a good illustration of the range of criteria employed by a local grandee in setting up a civic festival. Political considerations weighed most heavily with him, the hierarchical organisation of his distributions responding to the political distinctions that were current in first-century AD Akraiphia, but other criteria were also involved. This benefactor exercised his right to include persons of his choice in his distributions. He showed a marked preference for people who had contributed to the success of his festival, making explicit mention of certain professional groups on whose participation the festival depended. The inscription presents this as something peculiar to Epaminondas: we have seen, however, that in this respect he was not unique.

19 lIG 7, 2712 II. 72- 74 (improved text, comments and translation in Oliver [ 1971 ]). l92For rhimmata as gifts (cf. Latin missilia) thrown indiscriminately to the people in the theatre, see Robert (1969), 34-39.

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CONCLUSIONS Let us now put all our information together. In this chapter I have explored the evidence we have concerning the part played by professional and occupational associations in the public banquets and distributions of the cities of the Roman East, making a brief excursus into contemporary Italy. I have argued that we have adequate evidence that collegia were sometimes involved in these occasions, and that in this respect the differences between East and West have been exaggerated. Greek commensality underwent various changes during the Roman period. Public banquets and distributions appear to have retained their civic character as common enterprises of the community, but came increasingly to be organised by benefactors (usually members of the local elites) who used them to promote their own views of society. The result was that a more hierarchical way of organising public banquets and distributions was grafted onto a tradition that emphasised their importance as expressions of civic identity. Participation in public commensality appears to have been determined not by citizenship alone, but also by membership of a variety of status groups, which determined the ways in which individuals took part. Banquets came to reflect an image of society as a hierarchy of status groups rather than a community of political equals. This hierarchical view of society began, of course, at the top. Most distributions included the members of the boule and presented them as a superior status group in society, a privileged order. This process of ordo-making was not, however, limited to this level of society. Public commensality in the Greek cities of the Roman era also took in a variety of other civic groups which recruited their members from wider sectors of society. Gerousiai and public cult associations such as hymnoidoi, kouretes, neopoioi and chrysophoroi were frequent invitees. These groups offered wealthy individuals from various social backgrounds an opportunity for 'status association' with members of the boule. Participation in forms of public commensality helped to establish these men as members of recognised status groups in society. Alongside these groups, however, we find associations, consisting of demotai, which were defined by shared cult, occupation or neighbourhood in a way that is often difficult to disentangle. In some cases the inclusion of these groups in public distributions and banquets can be linked to a specific contribution made by the group in question to the ceremony or festival of which the banquets and distributions were a part. In other cases private associations had somehow acquired a proper place in the civic organisation which was reflected in their inclusion in official banquets. We

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have seen, however, that the public role of professional groups was not necessarily linked to any practical contribution. This shows that for some people occupational activity was a major source of social identity, and also that this identity was recognised and respected by wider groups in society. Public banquets and distributions, therefore, sometimes offered craftsmen and traders a 'festive identity' which associated them with the established political and religious institutions of the Graeco-Roman city, giving them a sense of civic importance.

CHAPTER FIVE PROFESSIONS ON PARADE

5: PROFESSIONS ON PARADE INTRODUCTION Processions were an essential part of religious festivals, just as they were of other ceremonies in Greek and Roman cities. I On festive occasions sacred objects, portable altars, sacrificial animals and statuettes representing gods, emperors or civic institutions could be seen cruising the streets, escorted (pompe, the Greek word for procession, means escort) by a festive crowd wearing bright garments, garlands and woollen fillets, and carrying all sorts of flags and banners. Although processions were part and parcel of religious ceremonies, personal piety may not always have been a major consideration for the participants. As a 19th-century Roman Catholic priest from the small French town of Minerve (Herault) commented: 2 ... no man observes Easter, but "curiously", all men and youth join in the parish processions.

There is good reason to believe that things may not have been all that different during the period we are looking at, and that processions were equally irresistible to the inhabitants of Greek cities under Roman rule. In this chapter I shall try to show that the members of private associations were not immune to the attractions of the festival procession. We shall see that in a number of cases they got the chance to walk the streets of their home towns in formal processions. Processions were important events in the traditional societies of the Roman Empire and also in those of medieval and early modem Europe. They have therefore become a central preoccupation of studies of ceremonial life in medieval and early modem cities and in antiquity.3 One reason for the popularity of processions, amongst modem historians no less than amongst the processions' contemporaries, 4 is Isee Price (1984), 107-114, 188-191; Burkert (1985), 99-101; Bomer in RE 12, s.v. pompa, 18781974. 2weber (1991), 127. Weber emphasises at various points that early nineteenth-century France was closer to traditional society than we would expect. 3For the first category of studies, see for example Trexler (1980), Darn ton (1984) and Muir (1981 ). For the second category, see Price (1984), and especially Rogers (1991 a); see also Maccormack ( 1981 ). See also above, Chapter 3. 4Note the introduction to Rogers (1991 a), in which he refers to the formative experience of participating in a local historical pageant in early youth. Van Bremen (1993), 245, points out a remarkable similarity here with the life of the famous Dutch historian Johan Huizinga, who as a sixyear-old boy witnessed a historical pageant performed by students at the Dutch university town of Groningen. This awoke in him for the first time the 'historical sensation' which was the driving force

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their potential for historical narrative. A place had to be found in the civic calendar for each procession, and decisions had to be made about its route through town and the places where it would stop. Processions linked some spaces, giving them a function in civic ritual, but ignored others. Such decisions mattered a great deal. Dates and places had their own mythical, religious or political associations, and processions took advantage of the city's existing symbolic geography, but they could also give places special meaning themselves. Seen in this way, the procession's route can be read as a deliberate statement, as a comment made by the participants on various aspects of the ancient city. s A good example of this approach is a recent study by Rogers of the procession of Vibius Salutaris in Ephesos. 6 The procession was part of a foundation created by this wealthy Ephesian benefactor that involved hundreds of participants. 7 Every two weeks or so a procession of statuettes set off from the Artemision. It was headed, appropriately, by two statuettes of the current imperial couple (Trajan and Plotina). The rest of it consisted of groups of three statuettes, each including one of Artemis and two others chosen from amongst various personifications of Ephesian political institutions (boule, gerousia, ephebes, and the Ephesian tribes), personifications of Roman political institutions (senate, ordo equester, populus Romanus), and personages from Ephesos' mythical and legendary past (the deities Pion and Euonymos, the mythical city founder Androklos and the Hellenistic dynast Lysimachos). Rogers argues that this procession followed a set route through Ephesos which highlighted the city's various 'foundations' in reverse historical order. It began at the scene of the most recent Roman foundation: the Roman road in the

upper city. It then passed along the Embolos and the Marble Street, stopping in the theatre, the assembly's venue. From here the procession went through Stadion Street to the Koressian gate, the part of the city most closely associated with its mythical origins as an Ionian foundation. From the Koressian gate it went back to the Artemision. Seen in this way, the procession offered its participants a story, a version of the city's history.

behind his interest in history. See also Tollebeek (1990), 215. Huizinga refers to this 'historical sensation' in his Waning of the Middle Ages: Huizinga (1986), 7. 5For an exemplary application of this approach, see Muir (1981) and Muir and Weissman (1989). 6Rogers (1991 a), esp. 80-135. 7Tue foundation's other main aim was a scheme of distributions which set out to highlight the political hierarchy of the city. Cf. Rogers (1991 a), 39-79.

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Large numbers of people were involved: 8 between the Artemision and the Magnesian gate the statuettes were carried by several functionaries of the Artemision, including members of the board of neopoioi and the chrysophoroi. The most prominent part, however, was played by the city's ephebes, who received the procession at the gate and escorted it through the streets of the city. Rogers is surely right in pointing out that the procession must have had a special significance for the ephebes: there was a statuette representing them, the processions coincided with several gymnastic and athletic competitions in which they participated, and of course they walked this route through town every other week. The effect of this arrangement was to socialise young men into their future role as citizens by making them walk through their city's past, escorting the imagery of the political present. This may have taught them to see their city as 'alive with symbolic meaning [rather] than as an architectural, institutional and political entity'. 9 Salutaris' procession took advantage of the city's symbolic geography to teach its youth about the complex relationship between the past and the present. Disregarding details, the participation of these youth groups is hardly 'unexpected', or 'unique' to the arrangements made by Salutaris. 10 Youth associations were frequent participants in civic and religious processions in Ephesos (the most famous example being, of course, the Artemis procession described by the approximately contemporary Xenophon of Ephesos in his Ephesian Tale ) 11 as elsewhere. 12 The Athenian ephebes were involved in several processions, a prominent one of which was part of the Eleusinian festival. 13 Each of these festival processions had a different story to tell, of special relevance to the participants; there was never any one authorised version of the past! 14 These stories were not told only in terms of choices about routes or types of statuary, and they were not addressed only to youth groups. Another, almost contemporary procession was organised by the Lycian benefactor Demosthenes in his home town, Oinoanda, as part of a penteteric agonistic festival. 15 The large inscription that records this donation shows that the emphasis here was not on a 8Rogers (1991 a), 86, estimates that within the city at least 260 people were involved. 9Muir and Weissman (1989), 93. IOcf. Rogers (1991 a), e.g. 67, 69 and 115. llXenophon Ephesius Ephesiaca l.2 2-5. Cf. Price (1984), 110. 12Cf. Forbes (1933), 52- 53, who cites examples from Magnesia, Gytheion and Kyzikos, but many other examples could be found. 13Cf. Burkert (1985), 99. See Versnel (1988) for the inscriptions which commemorated the rarticipation of ephebes in processions of this sort. 4For criticism of Rogers' attempt to set up Salutaris' version of the past as the authorised Ephesian version, see van Bremen (1993). 15Tue text was published by Wiirrle (1988); cf. also Mitchell (1990).

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mythical past, but on the more pressing matter of sorting out the relationships between an imperial system and the civic ideology of a small city.16 The inscription gives detailed instructions for the selection of an agonothete and various other festive functionaries (panegyriarchai, sebastophoroi, mastigophoroi, and agelarchai) from amongst precisely circumscribed subsections of the civic hierarchy. 17 It also arranges for a civic procession in which a portable altar and imperial images were to be escorted by the festival officials, civic priests (the imperial priest and priestess and the priest of Zeus) and political functionaries of the city (the secretary of the boule , agoranomoi, gymnasiarchoi, tamiai, paraphylakes, ephebarchoi and a paidonomos, and the supervisor of public buildings) as well as by representatives of the dependent villages in Oinoanda's territory, each with one or more sacrificial bulls. The procession thus encapsulated civic identity in terms of its political hierarchy, all participants being the representatives of institutional or local groups. is Despite the considerable differences between the two foundations, it is clear that processions served to highlight the relative importance of subsections of the population in the particular conceptualisations of the civic hierarchy that specific festivals presented to the public. Processions expressed current ideas about the corporate structure of society and about the essence of its civic hierarchy. 19 Inclusion or exclusion could be read as a potent symbol of the degree of integration and involvement (or lack of it) of specific groups in the city. Magistrates and civic priests were usually included or represented in one way or another, since the official hierarchy had to be respected at all times, but for youth groups, cult associations and other civic subgroups participation was not always guaranteed. This uncertainty must have been a frequent source of anxiety, and may have given rise to intensive negotiations in the background. 20 Any such negotiations are mostly hidden from us, of course, but they surface occasionally, as they do in the Salutaris inscription, which mentions that the neopoioi and chrysophoroi had actually put in a request for permission to participate in the procession. 21 It seems likely that other groups could do the same. 16Rogers (1991 b) comments (rightly, I think) that the relationship between the small city and the imperial centre was more tense than Worrle would have us believe. He is surely right to point out that there is considerable evidence that lengthy discussions and negotiations took place about the form the festival was to take. l 7The agonothete and the panegyriarchs had to be of bouleutic status; the sebastophoroi and mastigophoroi had to be citizens. The agelarchs had to be aristocratic boys. 1scr. Rogers (1991 b), 96-99. 19Price (1984), 112. 20Rogers (1991 a) and (1991 b) insists upon the importance of background negotiations between benefactors and the wider community. 21Cf. IK. 27, 419 sqq.

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There is further evidence to suggest that participation in a civic procession was a coveted honour, and that individuals and groups may have competed to be included. An inscription from first-century BC Ephesos shows that the individuals chosen to take part in a procession in honour of Artemis had to show a certificate from the city's antigrapheion , which could be obtained for the sum of one denarius.22 Presumably the document had to be shown at the start of the procession, in order to prevent the participation of unauthorised individuals. In Smyrna there was even a special official, the pompaios strategos, who was in charge of civic processions. 23 The inscriptions mentioned above show that regular appearances were made by members of several official cult associations such as the hymnoidoi, molpoi and neopoioi, and of course by specialised associations such as the chrysophoroi. There

is also considerable evidence concerning the participation of age associations in civic parades; this was especially frequent in the case of youth associations, as we saw above, but even the elderly citizens, the gerousiasts, could occasionally be seen marching through the streets. 24 THE PARTICIPATION OF PRIVATE ASSOCIATIONS IN CIVIC PROCESS IONS Neither Salutaris nor Demosthenes of Oinoanda had any place for private associations in his version of the social order. Nevertheless, private associations did walk the streets of ancient cities on other occasions. The most obvious case is probably that of the associations of dendrophori which were so prominent in the cities of Italy and the West. 25 They were simultaneously a cult association (linked with the cult of Silvanus26 and in particular with that of Cybele/Magna Mater27) and a professional association, active in the wood trade, although it is not quite clear what the exact occupation of its members was. 2s They are known because of a remarkable epigraphic production29 that links them with the equally prominent collegia of the fabri andcentonarii, with which they were formally joined by the emperor 22JK 11.1, 14, listing the charges for a salt carrier (halophoros), a celery carrier (seleinophoros), a singer (molpos), a shroudcarrier (speirophoros). 23IK 23, 500. 24Cf. IG Bulg. 2, 666, referring to presbyteroi hymnoidoi. 25Waltzing (1895-1900) I, 240-251, with a discussion. They were not limited to the West, however. Lemerle (1938), 466-471, no. 7, is an inscription which mentions a dendrophorus from Philippoi in Macedonia. 26Cf. Lemerle (1938), 466-471. 27Cf. Vermaseren (1977), esp. 96-125. 28Most scholars accept that they were wood merchants, but see Salamito (1987), 992: 'etaient-ils bucherons, marchands ou transporteurs de bois? Rien ne permet de repondre.' 29Salamito (1987), 992, counts 143 inscriptions that mention dendrophori.

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Constantine in 315.JO Their position was recognised officially, and it appears that in some cases members were appointed by the city authorities.JI Epigraphy provides us with the occasional piece of information concerning the cult features of these associations, J2 but unfortunately has little detailed information to offer about the public cult activity from which they derived their name. For this we have to depend upon literary evidence. Dendrophoria (symbolic tree-carrying in religious processions) was a phenomenon that occurred in various cults, but it was a particularly prominent feature of the cult of Cybele/Magna Mater. This oriental cult had been introduced into Rome in 205 BC, and its main festival gradually merged with the old Roman festival of the Megalesia. The cult's extravagant character (its celebrations included frenzied processions of castrated priests, thegalli) originally closed it to Roman citizens, but by the early Empire attitudes had softened, and the emperor Claudius allowed Roman citizens to take part in one of the cult's celebrations in the Metroon on the Palatine. The ritual calendar of this cult included several festivals in honour of Attis which involved the services of specialised collegia. On 15 March the festival of Canna Intrat (the entry of the reed) was celebrated. From the second half of the second century AD onwards this was done by the collegium of cannophori, which appears to have consisted of young men and women. These resembled the dendrophori in their organisation, and in the range of their epigraphically attested activities, but they cannot be linked with any specific occupation. JJ After this festival, cult members went through a week of fasting and abstinence until the celebration of the next festival, that of Arbor Intrat. This festival centred on the pine tree, closely connected with the myth and cult of Attis. J4 On the morning of the festival one of the trees in the sacred grove dedicated to Cybele was selected, cut down and adorned with an effigy of Attis and purple ribbons, and then carried in procession to the temple, where it lay in state. Cutting and carrying the tree

Joe.Th. 14.8.1; cf. Salamito (1987), 993 sqq. For their alleged role as fire-fighters, see the discussion in Chapter 4. JI As in Cumae; cf. Waltzing (1895-1900) I, 247 (CIL 10. 3699). J21n particular, the sacrifice of bulls ( Taurobolia) and rams (Criobolia) for the preservation of the emperor and the city: cf. CIL 12, 1744; CIL 13, 1751 and 1752; and AnnEpigr (1892), no. 18 (= Waltzing [1895-1900] III, no. 1395). For a description, see Vermaseren (1977), 101-107. Their schola was sometimes located in the precinct of the temple of Cybele, as it was in Ostia; cf. Hermansen (1981 ), 69 and 86. JJ Fishwick (1967) and Vermaseren (1977), 114-115. J4See Vermaseren (1977), 115, for references.

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was left to the dendrophori. Their participation was apparently an innovation introduced into the cult by the emperor Claudius:35 On the eleventh day before the Kalendae of April, a pine-tree was carried on the Palatine by the

dendrophori; the Emperor Claudius had introduced this celebration.

We can only surmise why this association was selected, but their professional experience clearly meant that they were cut out for the job. A relief from Gaul (now in the museum of Bordeaux) shows four muscular bare-chested .dendrophori carrying a tree-trunk. 36 This image is in contrast with a painting of another Cybele procession which was found in Pompeii, showing several men and women (or perhaps galli) carrying tambourines and other musical instruments as well as delicate branches of trees.3 7 We have no other evidence to link the dendrophori explicitly with public tree-carrying ceremonies in other cities of the Roman empire, but there seems little reason to doubt that this remained an essential element of their activities until the emperor Honorius abolished them in 415. 38 It has been suggested that the tektones who were included in the distributions of the Histrian benefactress Aba did the treecarrying in the festival for Cybele held in that town. Attractive though this suggestion is, there is no evidence to support it. 39 The role of private groups in public processions had a long history in the Greek world, 40 where it could be used to integrate foreign traders into the city's ceremonial cosmos. 4 1 An early example is the procession of Thracian traders in Peiraieus that was part of the public festival for the goddess Bendis. This procession was introduced in about 430 BC. It must have been perceived as a remarkable novelty, and Plato uses it to provide some couleur locale in the opening lines of the Republic (Socrates is speaking): 42

35Joannes Lydus De Mensibus 4.59 (41), ed. Wiinsch, p 113. Dendrophori are first attested to ef,igraphically in 97 AD (CIL 6, 642). 3 For a picture of this, see Vermaseren (1977), pl. 73. . 37Fresco from the via dell' Abbondanza, in Pompeii; picture in Vermaseren (1977), pl. 46. 38C.Th. 16.10.20.2: the text mentions the confiscation of 'all the scholae which the frediani, dendrophori and other pagan fraternities (whatever their names) kept for their banquets', in an attempt to stamp out pagan practices. The frediani were probably also responsible for carrying sacred objects in processions, but it is not clear whether they were also a professional group. Cf. Salamito (1987), 1007 sqq. 39Robert (1980), 157. This would explain why Aba, who was a priestess of Cybele, had invited them to her banquet. See also Pleket (1983 a), 342, and above, Chapter 4. 40Poland (1909), 266-267, gives some more examples. 41Cf. Baslez (1988) and (1984), esp. 269-294. 42PJato Res Publica 327a-b. The introduction of the cult of Bendis is discussed by Garland ( 1992), 111-114.

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Yesterday I went down to Peiraieus with Glaukon son of Ariston to worship the goddess and also because I wanted to see how they would conduct the festival on this, its first performance. I was certainly impressed with the splendour of the procession made by the local people, but I have to say that the Thracians rose to the occasion just as well in their procession.

The cult was probably established for political reasons, and was, at least in the beginning, sponsored by the state, but public interest appears to have been on the wane by the end of the fourth century. However, private sanctuaries were later established at other locations in Attica, mainly for the benefit of slaves and foreign traders, and various branches of the association were founded.43 The Bendis association remained active during the fourth century, and was still in existence in the 260s BC, when the Peiraieus branch passed a decree urging co-operation between the branches with regard to the procession that they still organised for the city.44 Another association which had a part to play in a local procession consisted of Phoenician traders on Delos, who used the procession at the festival of Apollo as an opportunity to publicise the honours they had awarded to their benefactor M. Minatius: 45 And let an ox be led in his honour every year for all time to come in the procession at the Apollonia, bearing the following inscription, 'The Society of Worshippers of Poseidon from Berytus for Marcus Minatius, son of Sextus'.

Not only foreign traders, but also associations of Dionysiac technitai and sacred victors participated in the public processions of the cities wherein they were based. An inscription from Pergamon records the triumphal entry into the city of the king Attalos III. He was formally received by a procession of civic representatives, including: 46 the hieronikai, wearing crowns from their contests, and the gymnasiarch with the ephebes and the

neoi, and the boys' teacher with the boys.

Our evidence concerning participation in processions by other private associations is less direct. The fact that various associations created the special office of standard-

43Cf. LSCG, 45 (third century BC). «10 22, 1255 is a decree by the association in honour of its hieropoioi, who had been in charge of the procession (pompe). They each received a golden crown and 300 drachmas; cf. also IO 22, 1256 (both fourth century). The latest attestation is LSCG, 46 (261-260 BC); cf. comments by Le Guen-Pollet (1991), 41-46. 451. Delos, 1520, II. 49-52 (To Kotvov Twv €v t.tjAC\) BripuT(wv T1oan8wvwaTwv €µrr6pwv Kal vauKAtjpwv Kal. EK8oxfov). 46Roueche (1993), 144; Robert (1984 a}, 482. Now in Robert (1985). Cf. also Poland (1909), 267.

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bearer, which was added to their own cursus honorum, 41 suggests that processions and parades made regular appearances on the festive calendars of private associations. One such standard-bearer was Aurelius Marinus, son of Marinus, who was the vexillifer of a collegium fabrum at Sarmizegethusa in Dacia.He mentioned this function proudly in a votive inscription to Deus Aetemus. 4s It is possible that his was one of the association's more lowly functions. The third-century album of a Dionysiac association in Nikopolis on the Istros (Moesia Inferior) starts by enumerating its dignitaries (who included some bouleutai). Standard-bearers were the last officials to be singled out before the ordinary members were named, which suggests that they had taken only a first step up the internal ladder of offices. 49 An epitaph from Sarmizegethusa allows us to see the function in its wider context, showing that certain families were likely to hold office in private associations for more than one generation. This inscription was set up by Julia Vivenia for her husband Julius Herculanus, who had been decurio of the schola fabrum 50 and imaginifer (image-bearer). She also commemorates her sons Julius Marcianus and

Julius Marcellinus, who also served as imaginifer and vexillarius, but died before reaching the decurionate.s• In all these cases it could be argued that the festive procession was a prominent element of associative life, one important enough to leave its mark on internal organisational structure, but we have no information about the occasions on which the vexilla and imagines were carried around. The same applies to other associations, for some of which participation in civic parades appears to have been a raison d'etre. In Phrygian Hierapolis we find an association of carriers of the cult image of Apollo Archegetos,s 2 and in Comum there was a schola vexilliariorum which had some connection with that town's collegium of fabri. They may have constituted an independent collegium, but it is also possible that they were a specialised subdivision of the fabri.53 At any rate, both associations were the recipients of funerary

47Waltzing (1895-1900) I, 425 and II, 186-7. 48CJL 3, 7900. 49CJL 3, 6150 =7437. SOJn this context decurio must refer to an office within the association. Collegia of fabri were often large enough to be subdivided into several decuriae. For a recent discussion of the subdivisions of the fabri, centonarii and dendrophori, see Royden (1988). SICJL 3, 1583 = 8018. 52Judeich (1898), no 153 (ol .6yous Epycicru, ws cirri> TOD 6pwv :1.LµEVLTwv TO auvEOpLO]IJ, and Giinther (1986), 323325, no. 2. 77Robert, Hellenica 11-12 (1960), 477-479. Now also in Gunther (1986), 316-317, and SEG 36, 1053: TO olKouµEvtKov Kal. aEµv6TaTov auvEOpLOv Twv :l.Lvoupywv. 78Giinther (1986), 323 (and photograph in Tafel 2, fig. 5). 79Giinther explains the peculiar epithet 'oecumenical' as a proud reflection of their economic importance (they exported linen 'all over the world'). Miletos was indeed renowned for its textile production, but the references are to wool and purple rather than to linen (see e.g. Pliny NH, 8.190-3; cf. Broughton (1959], 817). The term oecumenical is nowhere else used of a professional association (although cf. IGR 4, 144 [with SEG 4, 707], TWV QlTO T~S" ol[KouµEv]rw evrr6pwv KUL ~Evwv; cf. Wilhelm [ 1923], 425-426. Later on in the inscription the same group is indicated by the term ol arro T~S" 'Aa[as- epyaaTa[ .) However, it was a standard epithet amongst the associations of artists and athletes, to which Thelymitres must have belonged himself. It is not impossible that the linen-weavers copied the term from the athletes' association.

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associations (see below), were frequently dated after the prophet of the sanctuary. This suggests that seats were allocated according to some official form. The editor, Rehm, admits that to judge by the letter form some of these place inscriptions may have been graffiti, but in more than 42 cases (out of nearly 200) he is certain that we are dealing with official inscriptions. The topos inscriptions relating to professional associations (including an association of shellfish-dealers)BO appear to fall into this category. These examples show that professional associations had the authorities' permission to reserve seats in the theatre and stadia; the seating inscriptions were public inscriptions which served as a permanent reminder of the status of these groups in the eyes of the city's authorities. Placing the collegia

My argument so far has made it clear that the authorities in Roman cities exercised control over the seating arrangements in the auditoria of theatres, amphitheatres and stadiums. The purpose of these arrangements was to make explicit and reinforce the social divisions in Roman towns. By emphasising asymmetry and segregation, they expressed a fundamentally hierarchical conception of society wherein each and every one had his proper place. We have seen that the cities' authorities included collegia in such arrangements. In the following paragraphs I shall investigate whether it is possible to be more precise about the place of collegia in auditoria. Were they segregated and confined to small, inconspicuous places in peripheral positions, or were they allowed impressive amounts of space on conspicuous central benches? Were there any similarities between the arrangements made for them in different cities? This question is particularly relevant, as it has recently been suggested that certain types of professional association may have sat in similar positions in the auditoria of different cities.81 This would seem to imply a considerable degree of central organisation. It is difficult to answer these questions, since there are only a few auditoria whose seating arrangements we can reconstruct in sufficient detail. 82 In some cases we can reconstruct at least part of the seating arrangements, and make inferences on this

801. Didyma 50 (III, 18117); for the identification of this group as shellfish-dealers, see Robert (1959 b).

81 Roueche (1993), 131. If her hypothesis were to be confirmed, it would be much easier to reconstruct the seating arrangements in the theatres of other cities. 82Qne problem is that epigraphical publications often lack any adequate map indicating the find spots. Archaeological publications usually content themselves with saying that 'inscriptions' have been found on seats.

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basis. It should be noted, however, that we will only be able to reach provisional conclusions by these means. 83 1. A large number of place inscriptions were found in the theatre of Termessos, in Pisidia. 84 Most of these inscriptions were for named individuals, including a prytanis, priests and a rhetor. These were found in both the upper and the lower part of the cavea. Seats for various groups were also found in different parts of the auditorium. A youth association of ephebes had four rows in a block in the lower area, the oldest part of the auditorium. The upper area of the cavea dates from the Augustan period. Here we find a row of seats for hieronikai (victors in sacred games) and also three rows, at the front of a block, which were reserved for the orreon latypoi. The editor suggests that we could interpret this name as horreon latypoi, which would mean stone-cutters connected with the imperial horrea (grain storehouses), but it has recently been argued that we should interpret it as oreioi latypoi the stone-cutters from the mountains. 85 The stone-cutters were seated in the front row of the upper part in front of various priests, a location which must have carried considerable prestige. 2. More than 120 seating inscriptions have been found in the lower part of the auditorium of the theatre of Dionysos in Athens, most of them dating from the imperial period. The first row around the orchestra was occupied by special raised seats (proedria) which were reserved for various priests and officials.86 The inscriptions can be dated to the imperial period, but most of these seats appear to have been reserved for the holders of offices and priesthoods which can be connected directly with Athens' classical past (including the archon basileus, the polemarch and the thesmothetai).81 However, superimposed on these, as markers of Roman domination, are seats for the holders of imperial priesthoods (for Augustus and Hadrian), 88 a seat for the 'priest of the Demos, Charites and Rome', 89 and a seat for a priest of Hadrian's deceased favourite Antinoos.90 The places on the first level of

831 have only tried to reconstruct seating arrangements in the auditoria of the eastern part of the Roman empire that involved associations. Appendix 5 contains plans of the most important auditoria. 84TAM 3.1, 872. Appndix 5, Pl. 8. 85Tuere were quarries in the territory of Terrnessos. The building trade must have been of considerable economic importance, according to Brandt (1992), 137, who translates 'Steinbrucharbeiter in den Bergen'. 86JG 22, 5022-5079. See below Appendix 5, Pl. 4. 8710 22' 5035-5042. 88JG22, 5033, 5034. 89JG 22' 5047. 90ia22, 5062.

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benches behind the proedriai were reserved for a more varied selection of spectators;9I here we find seats for priests and priestesses (again, of a mixture of ancient and 'modern' cults). There are a considerable number of individual names, and one place indication for a professional association of stone-cutters, the lithokopoi. As in Termessos, they appear to have sat in a relatively prestigious position. Their bench was in the eleventh row of the eighth block in the first section above the orchestra, practically in the middle of the cavea. 92 There are no signs of reserved places for other professional associations, but it is not unlikely that the other associations sat in the upper part of the theatre, where most of the seats have been lost. 3. A large number of seating inscriptions have been found in the theatre of Miletos. They have not all been published as yet, but it is already clear that various seats were reserved for private groups and associations.93 Several places were reserved for a youth association (of the neoteroi) which sat in the fourth section of the first level. A Jewish cult group consisting of 'Jews and God-fearers' sat in the second section of the first level of seats, a fairly prominent location. 94 The theatre also had places reserved for professional groups. I have argued above that the linen-weavers and two associations of harbour porters may have sat in a section reserved for their patron Thelymitres in the three top rows of the fourth section of the second level. The most prominent professional group in the auditorium was the goldsmiths' association. Inscriptions in the first, second and fourth sections on the first level indicate seats for aurarioi, blue aurarioi, victorious aurarioi and 'emperor-loving' aurarioi.95 These inscriptions were first mentioned by A. Cameron, who interpreted them as referring to groups of 'claqueurs'. 96 However, it has now been shown that aurarioi actually

9IIG 22, 5083-5164. 92IG 22, 5087. Inspection of the site revealed that this inscription was still perfectly legible, in clear lettering. I could read some other letters in the same block, but I was not able to identify other names or titles. 93The inscriptions found in this theatre will be published by P. Herrmann. I would like to thank Prof. Herrmann for allowing me to use these inscriptions. See below: Appendix 5, PL 7. 94Tue stone has Torros- Elou8Ewv Twv Kal 0eoae~[ov, but it is better to read TOTTOS" 'lou8Ewv 9eoae~e[wv. Deissmann (1923), 391-392, no. 8 = SEG 4, 441. However, see now Hommel (1975) and SEG 41, 1840. For a discussion ofGod-fearers, see Reynolds and Tannenbaum (1987). 95Milet Inv. 771: TOTTOS" aupap[wv BEVETw(v); and TOTTOS" aupap[w(v); Milet Inv. 772: TOTTOS" ETTLVlKLWV aupap[wv and Milet Inv. 789, 776, and 774: TOTTOS" LAayoUaTOV aupap[ov (sic). All these texts were mentioned by Cameron (1976), 248. 96Cameron (1976).

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denoted a professional association of goldsmiths which enjoyed considerable prestige in the city. 97 4. In neighbouring Didyma there was no theatre, but the sanctuary contained a stadium which hosted the penteteric festival of the Didymeia,98 an area along the south side of the temple of Apollo being used for this purpose. The steps of the temple's platform were used as seats. Most of the benches that were once on the opposite side have disappeared, but one seating inscription has survived, belonging to an association of Hierokomitai. This may have been a village association. 99 Most of the large numbers of seating inscriptions found are on the front two rows of seats running along the stadium (that is, the bottom steps of the temple platform). The first two rows were probably the most favoured seats, as there are significantly fewer inscriptions on the third and fourth steps. Only one inscription has been found on the fifth row. Most of the inscriptions on the podium steps refer to named individuals, and some of these people are identifiable as officials and liturgists of the city or the sanctuary (prophets, of course, an archon, a gymnasiarch, a high priest, and a female agonothete). Other seats were allocated to a variety of groups and associations. Some of these were closely connected with the cult and ritual activities of the sanctuary: we find cult associations such as the hymnoidoi, neokoroi and Tibereioi (a cult association for Tiberius). There are professional associations of cult personnel (hieroi) and of performers: hieronikai (sacred victors) and associations: actors(choregoi).100 There is also a seat for a single tragoidos. Louis Robert has identified one place inscription in the third row as that of an association of soleni(stai) or shellfish-dealers which is also on record in Miletos. 101 Finally, various seats appear to have been reserved for groups or associations which cannot readily be identified. Such groups were indicated by the term triklinon of so-and-so or by the expression hoi peri ton deina (the people around so-and-so), or even by individual names in asyndeton.10 2 The 97See, in the last instance, Roueche (1995), who argues that during the Late Empire this group was gradually drawn into public service; they seem to have had some special connection with the collection of taxes in gold. 98see Rehm in I. Didyma, p. 97. All inscriptions are listed under I. Didyma, 50. See below: Appendix 5,Pl. 6. 99J. Didyma 50 a (Twv 'lep0Kwµ11Twv). 100Unless we ought to interpret this term (as in Athens) as indicating the performers of a liturgy; these are, however, usually named individually. 101Robert (1959 b), 661, apropos of I. Didyma 50 (IIl.18/17). A GTOAOS TWV GWAflVOKEVTWV is on record in Miletos (OGIS 756). l02Rehm suggests that these may have been youth associations. This is an attractive solution in view of the frequent presence of youth associations at public festivals, but it cannot be proved.

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reservation of all these seats for groups of different type suggests that group membership was an important aspect of the ritual identity of audiences in Didyma. This is supported by the fact that associations, authorities and prominent individuals were seated quite close to each other. For example, the official inscription designating the seats reserved for the association of shellfish-dealers was on the front of the third row. To their left we find seats for individuals and official seats for a group of three individuals, for an agonothete and for a hymnoidos. To their right we find the official seat of Heliodora, a female agonothete, and the seats of individuals. This location suggests that, at least in the context of the Didymeia, professional associations enjoyed a festive identity. S. There are far fewer seating inscriptions in the theatre of Bostra: only thirteen, compared to the nearly 200 inscriptions in Didyma. 103 All but one of the identifiable inscriptions refer to professional associations. An inscription relating to bronzesmiths

(chalkatopoi) was found on the ninth step of the second section.104 Several seats reserved for the askopoioi, who produced leather bags for the transport of wine, were found in different parts of the theatre: they had seats in the eleventh row of the second section, in the first elevation, 105 as well as specially constructed seats in the second diawma (walkway) just right of centre, 106 and a seat in the first diawma in front of the second section.101 Immediately next to this were certainly two and possibly three seats for chrysochooi (goldsmiths).1os One inscription relates to a group of soldiers (the centuria of Antonius L ... ). This was found not in the

auditorium itself, but in the outer gallery. A hole in the centre of the stone bearing the inscription indicates that it was used as a base for the mast to which the velum, or awning, was attached. 109 The job of handling the awnings was frequently entrusted to companies of soldiers, 11 0 and one of these companies apparently marked the spot with its name. Other place inscriptions in the same areas consist only of a few letters which do not permit identification.

103 See below: Appendix 5, Pl. 5. 104IGLS 13, 9156. Sartre, in the comments a.I., suggests that this word should be understood as either xaAKTTTOL or xaAK(Twwv) TOTTOL. The confusion a/o is not uncommon in Bostra. l05JGLS 13, 9159. 106JGLS 13, 9158. l07IGLS 13, 9160. l08IGLS 13, 9161; 9162 and possibly 9163. 109See Christo! (1992), 245, for a discussion of awnings. 1lOIGLS 13, 9168, and comments a.I.

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6. Finally, we tum to Aphrodisias, in Caria. An unusually large number of seating inscriptions have been preserved in this city's three auditoria: a theatre, an odeum and a stadium. The inscriptions were published at various stages by J.M. Reynolds and C. Roueche, and have now been discussed in an excellent study by Roueche. 111

The odeum. The smallest of the three auditoria, known as the odeum, was used for political purposes (for example, sessions of the boule and other assemblies were held there) and also for concerts and recitals. 112 The seating inscriptions (which all seem to be late Roman) can be divided into two categories, which can be connected to these two uses. A series of abbreviations cut into the fronts of the benches may have represented the names of tribes.113 The other category, cut into the tops of the benches, consists of topos inscriptions referring to specific named groups. An association of younger men (neoteroi) had two reserved places in the fifth row of the second block of seats. 114 Three rows above them was a place for the Jews.11s Another place, in the sixth row of the fifth block, was reserved for the elder Jews who supported the Blue circus faction. 11 6 Other places were reserved for supporters of the Blues in the fifth block, in rows four and seven.111

The theatre. The theatre of Aphrodisias was built in the first century BC and remained in continuous use until the sixth century AD, when its stage buildings were built over as part of a general transformation of civic space under Christian influence. 11s Most of the extant inscriptions can be dated to the Later Empire, but the seats show signs of frequent and extensive recutting, and traces of earlier inscriptions are visible. I l9 The theatre is therefore like a palimpsest, a reflection of a continuing need to fix symbolic representation by means of public writing. Most of the inscriptions are in a fragmentary state, which renders interpretation difficult, but quite a few texts appear to refer to individual names. Some, however, seem to refer to places for officials and functionaries; for example, in the third row of the first block there is a seat for a mandator (herald). 120 As in the odeum, seats were kept for the circus factions, which were still active in the theatres of the Later lllRoueche (1993), with further references. I would like to thank Miss Reynolds for making her notes of the seating inscriptions available to me prior to publication. 112RouecM (1993), 118. See below: Appendix S, Pl. 2. 113Roueche(l993), no.47, l,andcommentson 117-118. 114Roueche (1993), no. 47, 2 BS. 115Roueche (1993), no. 47, 2 BS. 116Roueche (1993), no. 47, 2 06. 117Roueche (1993), no. 47, 2 ES and 7. 118Roueche (1989 a), 223; Cormack (1990), 36 sqq. See below: Appendix S, Pl. 1. I 19Roueche (1993), 84. 120Roueche (1993), 100, no. 46, A3 To(rros) µavo(ciTopos). The word is presumably a Greek transliteration of the Latin mandator (cf. also aupcipLoL for aurarii). Cf. Roueche, in the comments a.I.

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Empire.121 The Greens appear to have been concentrated in the northern blocks122 and the Blues in the southern blocks.1 23 It is interesting that two inscriptions referring to professional associations are to be found in the part of the auditorium that was clearly dominated by the Blue faction. In the thirteenth row of the ninth block we find a place inscription referring to butchers (makellitai) who supported the Blue faction: 124 Place of the butchers. The Fortune of the Blues triumphs! Five rows below the butchers, an inscription around an incised drawing of a bust suggests that this was the place reserved for an association of goldsmiths: 125 The Fortune triumphs of Theodotos, chief goldsmith -]also (called) Kolotron. The term protaurarios, which I translate as chief goldsmith, probably denoted the president of the association.126 We know that the goldsmiths were seated together in the stadium of Aphrodisias, and this acclamation (which is not necessarily the work of the president himself) suggests that the goldsmiths also sat together in the theatre.

It seems likely that the aurarioi developed a connection with the Blue faction during the Later Empire, since this section of the theatre is dominated by inscriptions referring to the Blues. The Blue aurarioi of Miletos were seated in the same part of the theatre.127

The stadium. The largest number of place inscriptions was found in the stadium. This was built in the first or second century AD, and could hold nearly 30,000 spectators. During the first century AD it was included in the city's fortifications, but it continued to be used until the fifth century AD. At some point during the Byzantine period the eastern end was adapted for gladiatorial contests. 12s More than eighty inscriptions (or traces of inscriptions) were·found on the seats of the stadium. 129 There are some indications that not all positions in the stadium were equally popular. The most desirable seats appear to have been those in the centre 121See Roueche (1993), 129 sqq., for a discussion. 122Roueche (1993), 100 sqq. Bl; Cl8?; E2?; E9; El I. 123Roueche (1993), 108 sqq. G12i; J13; L4?; L7. 124Roueche (1993), 112 J13. Roueche comments that µaKEAALTTJS is a variant of µaKEAAcipLO,;. 125Roueche (1993), 112 J. 126See Roueche ( 1993), 112, for other examples of the use of this term. 127See above, in the section on Miletos. 128Erim (1986), 67-70; Roueche (1989 a), 219. 129Tuere are forty blocks. The numbering starts from the central block on the eastern side, and runs anticlockwise. Roueche (1989 a), 219, mentions 42 blocks, but the correct number is 40; cf. Roueche (1993), 84. See below: Appendix 5, Pl. 3.

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blocks on each long side of the stadium. In the eleventh block, on the north side, and in the thirty-first block, immediately opposite it on the south side, the remains of built-up podia for the magistrates' seats of honour have been found. Most of the inscriptions found were in this area. Various seats were reserved for named individuals, some of whom can be connected to prominent local families. They may have kept seats both for themselves and for various dependants.130 The majority of the seats, however, were reserved for various groups, many of which were of recognised status in the city. For example, some rows appear to have been reserved for 'the tribes of the Aphrodisians'. However, only one row was definitely so reserved, and Roueche suggests that only certain of the tribes' officials, or perhaps only their politically active members, may have been entitled to reserved seats.13! Youth associations appear in the guise of 'Sacred Ephebes'.13 2 There were various places for oikonomoi or administrators: 'sacred oikonomoi' 133 and 'younger oikonomoi' reserved different rows in the same block, 13 4 and another group of oikonomoi had places in another part of the stadium.135 The citizens of other cities also make an appearance, some, perhaps, having attended the festivals as ambassadors. There were seats for the citizens of Mastaura in Lycia, 136 for the inhabitants of Antiocheia on the Maeander, 137 and perhaps for citizens of Kibyra138 and Miletos.139 In between we find the seats reserved for various other associations; for example, for clubs of supporters of gladiatorial games. These seem to have sat in the eastern part of the stadium, which had been rebuilt to mak~ it suitable for games of this sort. 140 Professional associations were seated in various parts of the stadium. In the second block, three seats were reserved for the frumentarioi, a term which may have been used here in its original meaning of corn-dealers, rather than its derived sense of military officers. 14 1 An individual sculptor had a reserved seat in the seventh block, 130see above, on the seats belonging to Klaudia Seleukeia. 131Roueche (1993), no. 45, 32Y; perhaps also no. 45, 2M; 2T; comments on 122-123. 132Roueche (1993), no. 45, 30U; 30V. 133Roueche (1993), no. 45, 30R; 30T. 134Roueche (1993), no. 45, 30S. 135Roueche (1993), no. 45, l lF; I JG. 136Roueche (1993), no. 45, 40. 137Roueche (1993), no. 45, 34S. 138Roueche (1993), no. 45, 35L. 139Roueche (1993), no. 45, 12H. 140for this type of association and its similarity to other types, see Roueche (1993), 28 and 79, and Pippidi (1975), 269. The inscriptions are Roueche (1993), no. 45, 2M.(T6rros [.]i\OK[.]KON PN; Roueche mentions that S. Mitchell suggests [L];\015[uv]rj[y]l\lv, lovers of venationes) and 2T (Y AOP- perhaps ~~Qp- supporters). 141Roueche (1993), no. 45, 2U. Cf. Roueche's comments a.I. p. 85.

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but there is no indication that other sculptors - let alone a collegium of sculptors were seated there as well.142 I have already discussed the seats belonging to Klaudia Seleukeia, amongst which we find places reserved for a collegium of goldsmiths

(chryso[chooi]) and for another syntechnia.143 This double reservation may imply that at some point the gold-workers fell out of favour with Klaudia Seleukeia, whereupon their place was taken by another association. Two blocks further on, ten seats were reserved for a syntechnia of tanners. 144 In block 30, the whole of row Z was reserved for the syntechnia of kepouroi, or market-gardeners.1 45 Finally, in the thirty-eighth block we find four seats reserved for the aurarioi, or goldsmiths.146 Although it is hard to determine the principles according to which the audience was seated in the stadium of Aphrodisias, the distribution of the seats reserved for professional associations throughout the auditorium suggests that the authorities were not trying to isolate associations or relegate them to marginal back seats. These associations seem to have been able to claim a place alongside the official and established bodies of the city of Aphrodisias.

7. It has been known for a long time that some of the seats in the stadium of the small Lydian town of Saittai are marked by topos inscriptions relating to urban tribes. 147 Recently more seating inscriptions have been uncovered (all from the second and third centuries AD), but others may still be hidden under the bushes and earth that cover most of the seats at present. 148 One row of seats was reserved for the gerousia, and another for priests.1 49 The majority of the seats, however, were reserved for tribes. Apart from the tribes of Asklepios and Dionysos, we find tribes named after Herakles 150 and Apollo; 151 two other tribes were named after smaller settlements on

142Roueche (1993), no. 45, 7X. The sculptors of Aphrodisias were renowned, and they may have been a group of considerable status. It is interesting to note that there appears to have been a public agon (contest) of sculptors, which may be indicative of their social aspirations and of the respect they commanded amongst their fellow citizens; cf. Erim and Reynolds (1989). 143Roueche (1993), no. 45, IOX and JOY. 144Roueche (1993), no. 45, 120 (~upmiwv qv[vTExvia]). 145Roueche (1993), no. 45, 34, Z. Krirroup6s- could indicate gardeners in 'Ziergarten ', but could also mean the market-gardeners who lived and worked in the suburban zone of productive plots, sanctuaries, villas and burial places which surrounded so many ancient cities. See SEG 40, 1187. 146Roueche (1993), no. 45, 39, P. 147TAM 5.1 , 74 u()..i'ts-) 'AcrK>..rimci8os- 2x; u(>..fis-) t.wvumci8os- 2x. 148Kolb (1990); see also SEG 40, 1063. 149Kolb (1990), 112, no. 15 (in the middle of a block) and 113, no. 22 (in the first row of a block). 150Kolb (1990), 114, nos. 30, 2; 31; 32; 33; 34; 35. 151Kolb (1990), 109, nos. land 2.

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the territory of Saittai, 152 which were thus assured of some form of representation in the city, and one tribe cannot be identified. 153 It is striking, however, that several inscriptions seem to refer to a tribe named after

a professional group, the linen-weavers. This group may have occupied six rows of seats, suggesting that it was a fairly large one; this is supported by the facts that there may have been a second tribe of linen-weavers, and that the younger members of the tribe had their own row of seats. 154 There are some parallel examples of tribes named after professional groups. In neighbouring Philadelphia phylai of wool-weavers and of shoemakers were responsible for the setting up of honorific statues for distinguished citizens and civic benefactors, and there may have been other such phylai .155 The existence of these tribes testified to the social and economic standing

of these craftsmen in Lydian cities. There is no other evidence that either the wool or the leather trade was of particular importance to Philadelphia, but Saittai appears to have had a thriving textile sector. The epigraphic record of this city, which consists mainly of funerary inscriptions, commemorates large numbers of textile workers, who showed a high level of professional specialisation. There were associations of fullers, weavers, woolworkers, feltmakers and linen-weavers.156 Although the area around Saittai was apparently very suitable for raising sheep, pasturing, and growing flax, 157 it was not known for its production of luxury cloth for distant markets. Saittai's textile production appears to have been of mainly regional importance. In these Lydian cities occupational activities were accepted as a constituent element of political identity, and it may be suggested that these tribes were a political incarnation of the many professional associations. However, it is hard to say to what extent the 'occupational tribes' were able to defend the political interests of these associations. We have no evidence of any political activity on their part, let alone of any defence of economic interests, all the evidence we have suggesting a 'representational' role (i.e. participation in civic rituals). It should be noted, though, that in this role 'occupational tribes' do not seem to have been considered inferior to 152Kolb (1990), 111, no. 11, TaµaaqtTT]VWV (after the village Tamasis), and nos. 12, 13 and 14, which mention a cf>u:I.~ LUTUAT]VWV (after the village Satala). For representation of villages in a civic procession in the urban centre, see above, Chapter 5, and Wi:irrle (1988). 153Kolb (1990), 114, no. 24 cf>(u:l.fis-) LUV[- -li:iiSos-. 154Kolb (1990), 115, 117, nos. 36; 37; 38; 39; 40; 41. cf>u:l.(fis-) W [:l.],vou[pywv], :l.Lvou]p{a}yw[v] vE(wTEpwv), [:1.tvoup]ywv, [:1.tvo]u[p]ywv, [:1.tv]oupywv, [:l.]tvo[upywv]. l55Waltzing (1895-1900) III, no. 147 (~ iEpa cf>u:I.~ Twv aKUTEwv) and IGR 4, 1632 (~ iEpa cf>u:I.~ Twv eptoupywv ). The inscriptions refer to a total of seven tribes; it is not unlikely that other tribes were also named after occupations. See also Jones ( 1971 ), 92. i56See Kolb (1990), 118; see also SEG 29, 1184; 1191; 1195; 1198; SEG 31, 1026; 1036; SEG 32, 1234; SEG 33, 1017; TAM 5.1, 82; 83; 84; 85 and 86. 157For a discussion of this city's economic importance, see Pleket (1988), 32, and (1990 b), 148.

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other tribes: the position of the linen-weavers' tribe in the stadium of Saittai (in front of the tribe of Herakles) suggests that they enjoyed a ritual representation which put them at least on a par with that city's other tribes.

8. Leaving the East for a moment, let us see where the seats of some professional associations in Gaul were located.

Arelate. The diffusores olearii and the scholastici of Arelate (modem Aries) were awarded seats in a highly prestigious location in the amphitheatre's auditorium, both being seated on the podium with the decurions.158 The scholastici had another twenty seats higher up, just above the second-level walkway, indicating internal differentiation. Next to these were the seats of the cult association of the pastophori of the temple of Isis. 159 Other inscriptions from the same theatre show that places at the back of the podium were reserved for forenses (market-traders).The evidence regarding the seats reserved for the navicularii (shippers) and the Seviri Augusta/es is fragmentary, but in view of the prominent social and economic position of these groups it is very probable that they were also entitled to seats in conspicuous locations. 16°

Nemausus. In the amphitheatre of Nemausus (modem Nimes), the shippers of the Ardeche (?) and Ouveze, and those of the Rhone and Saone, appear to have had seats reserved for them right above the podium.16 1 The navicularii from neighbouring Arelate had seats on the first-level walkway in the same amphitheatre. 162

Caveat: Signs of tension This discussion of the available evidence allows us to draw some preliminary conclusions. In the first place it is obvious that the allocation of seats to private associations varied considerably from city to city, and that there is no firm evidence to support the thesis that professional groups sat in similar positions in different

auditoria. On the other hand, it is also clear that private associations were not usually relegated to back seats. Collegia appear to have been able to secure places in between

158CIL 12, 714. 159CIL 12, 714. The inscription reads PAS[ ... ]HO.TI, which may perhaps be interpreted as PAS[TOP]HORI T(EMPLI) l(SIDIS) or as PAS[TOP]HORI and TI(BICINES), flautists. For the pastophori and the Isis cult, see North (1980). l60c1L 12, 697 = Waltzing (1895-1900) III, no. 1964. [F]ORENS[I(BUS)] IIIIIl[VIR(IS) N[ AVICULAR( IIS )] . 161CIL 12, 3316-3317. 162CIL 12, 3318 =Waltzing (1895-1900) III, no. 2036: NAV(ICULARIORUM) AREL(ATENSIUM).

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official bodies and civic institutions. In some cases they even had fairly conspicuous positions at the front of a block, and in at least one case (Athens) a professional association had a very prominent position which associated it directly with the local authorities, and even with representatives of the imperial authorities. This may suggest that the associations' relationships with the rest of the community were free of tension, and that they received these seats as a matter of course. However, things may have been a little more complicated than that. Seating inscriptions suggest an image of a well-ordered society, a world in which each and every one had a fixed place, as a member of a recognised status group. This was, of course, an image which the urban authorities had an interest in promoting. It was part of their duty, as the local representatives of imperial power, to keep the crowds under control, and to be seen to be doing so. l63 Seating arrangements may have helped them to do just that, providing the citizens with a model of the way in which they were supposed to perceive their city and their own place in it, and bearing testimony to the elite's ability to keep people in their place. However, seating arrangements did not exist only in inscriptions; they derived meaning from their ritual context, from the reactions of an audience to which inscriptions, official ceremonial and individual reactions to it were clearly visible. Seating orders meant something, but not necessarily the same thing to different people. Our picture, based as it is on normative inscriptions, is inevitably one-sided and static, and it may seduce us into taking the official image of smooth integration too easily for granted. 164 There is another reason for trying to rediscover the truth about these practices. It has been observed that in pre-modem Europe civic rituals designed to express and promote consensus often exacerbated existing tensions and social divisions, and frequently turned into occasions on which images of the social order were contested and popular grievances exploded. 165 Epigraphy is not the most obvious medium in which to look for evidence of tensions concerning theatre seats, or matters of precedence between the collegia and other social groups, although isolated dedications to Concord (Homonoia), for instance those of two professional associations from the city of Side and of a cult association in Dacian Kallatis, suggest

163Cf. Brown (1992). 164Morris (1992), 11. 165The classic description is Le Roy Ladurie (1979); cf. also Zemon Davis (1987 b), esp. 29 sqq. McRee (1994) discusses the socially divisive effects of another guild ritual, the procession; cf. also Nijsten (1994), 56-57, on the conflict between the civic ideology of concordia and the tensions between various guilds and fraternities about precedence in civic processions.

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that such tensions did exist. 166 We must tum to literary sources for a few tantalising glimpses of the kind of tensions that civic festivals - and in particular seating arrangements - could generate, and for hints that professional associations were sometimes involved in them. Throughout Roman history there are references to outbursts of civic unrest and popular violence which had their roots in the theatres, amphitheatres and circuses. The best known of these are the fights between the rival circus factions of the Later Empire,167 but there is evidence that the theatres had also been the focus of civic unrest long before that. 168 Some of this popular dissatisfaction may have arisen over seating arrangements that were perceived as unfair. Horace, Juvenal and Martial frequently took seating arrangements as a theme in their satirical works. A favourite butt was the upstart freedman who pretends to belong to the equestrian order by taking a seat in the area reserved for knights, 169 but on some occasions they also showed signs of dissatisfaction with the way in which classification systems worked. For example, Juvenal cites the seating regulations among the reasons given by a freeborn client for wanting to leave Rome: 110 The hardest thing to bear in poverty is that it makes us ridiculous. "Out of these front-row seats," says the attendant. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves - your incomes are far too small, and the law's the law. Make way for some pander's son, spawned in an unknown brothel, let your place be occupied by that natty auctioneer's offspring, with his high-class companions, the trainer's brat and the son of the gladiator applauding beside him". Such are the fruits of that pinhead Otho's' Reserved Seats Act. Earlier, Cicero had accused his arch-enemy Clodius of subverting the Megalesian games (and by implication the Roman state) by introducing slaves into the audience and neglecting the 'traditional seating order'. Clodius' games were a disturbing cocktail in which everything was mixed and confused. Precise details elude us, but it has been suggested that Clodius' 'deplorable' behaviour may have included the

166 The inscription from Kallatis was published in Dacia (1958), NS 2, pp. 207-225 (SauciucSaveanu). The text was set up in honour of a benefactor who had supplied a cult association with firewood during a period of crisis; did he step in when the city authorities decided that public sacrifices were to be made a priority? The inscription from Side (SEO 33, 1165) is a dedication by associations of flour-sievers and dough-moulders; there is no indication of the background of this dedication. 167cf. Roueche (1993), 7. 168Cf. Hopkins (1983), 14-20; Bollinger (1969). 169E.g. Horace Epodes 4; Martial 5.8; 5.14; 5.23; 5.2. 170Juvenal, 3, 152-159 (translation P. Green). Horace's objections to the 'wall of bronze', i.e. the property qualifications required by the equestrian order, are voiced in Epistulae 1.1.57-59: 'E.ST ANIMUS TIBI, SUNT MORES, EST LINGUA FIDESQUE, SEO QUADRIGENTIS SEX SEPTEM MILIA DESUNT, PLEBS ERIS.'

Seats and Civic Memory

237

allocation of reserved seats to freedmen or to members of collegia (which counted freedmen among their number) in an attempt to gain their political support.171 In other incidents involving unrest in theatres or amphitheatres collegia are mentioned as the culprits, but unfortunately we are not usually given details of their involvement. The most famous incidents involving collegia were the Pompeii riots of

59 AD, described by Tacitus. These were also the subject of a wall painting in Pompeii: 172 At about the same time, a trivial incident led to a serious affray between the inhabitants of the colonies of Nuceria and Pompeii, at a gladiatorial show presented by Livineius Regulus, whose removal from the senate had been noticed. During an exchange of raillery, typical of the petulance of country towns, they resorted to abuse, then to stones, and finally to steel; the superiority lying with the populace of Pompeii, where the show was being exhibited. As a result, many of the Nucerians were carried maimed and wounded to the capital, while a very large number mourned the deaths of children and parents. The trial was delegated by the emperor to the senate; by the senate to the consuls. On the case being laid before the members, the Pompeiians and a community were debarred from holding any similar assembly for ten years, and the collegia which they had formed against the law were dissolved (COLLEGIA QUAE CONTRA LEGES INSTITUERANT). Livineius and the other fomenters of the outbreak were punished with exile. Tacitus' description of the riots leaves many details unclear, but the whole affair appears to have sprung from some form of inter-city rivalry. The situation was serious enough for the Roman authorities to punish the instigators of the riots, and to prohibit games in Pompeii for ten years.173 It was also decided to ban 'collegia which were formed against the law' (i.e. collegia whose apparent purpose it had been to create havoc and unrest). Unfortunately, we do not know what part the collegia took in the riots, or even which collegia were involved.174 It is not impossible that they were 'ordinary' collegia which were manipulated by elite ringleaders. A passage from the work of the Christian apologist Tertullian suggests that people believed that private associations were often paid to get up riots in theatres and amphitheatres. He argues that Christianity should not be lumped together with illegal associations: 175

171Rawson (1987), 87-88. Cf. also Flambard (1977). 172Tacitus Anna/es 14.17. For the picture, see Golvin and Landes (1990), 451. The episode has been discussed by Galsterer (l 980) and by Mouritsen and Gradel ( 199 l ). l 73 Although this ban may not have lasted long; cf. Mouritsen and Gradel (l 99 l ), 152. 174Associations of supporters, neighbourhood associations and youth associations have all been suggested as the culprits. Cf. Cracco Ruggini (1971), 92-93. For youth associations, see Jacques (1980), 220.

175Tertullian Apologeticum 38.2.

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Should not this school have been classed among the tolerated associations, when it commits no such actions as are commonly feared from unlawful associations? For, unless I am mistaken, the reason for prohibiting associations clearly lay in forethought for public order - to save the state from being torn into parties, a thing very likely to disturb assemblies, public gatherings, local councils, meetings, even the public games, with the clashing of partisans especially since men had begun to reckon on their violence as a source of revenue, offering it for sale at a price.

Tacitus' and Tertullian's arguments here are revealing of elite prejudices with respect to the lower classes, who (especially when organised into private associations) were supposedly prone to violence and immoral behaviour (lower-class violence could be bought as easily, as could lower-class labour). This view ignores the possibility that violence was being used by the lower classes for their own sake, in defence of their own economic interests. This, however, is exactly what appears to have happened in my last example. The riot of the silversmiths in Ephesos, an episode which has featured several times in my study, shows that the theatre was considered an obvious location for the expression of popular grievances. 176 After Demetrios had mobilised his fellow silversmiths, they took to the streets: Now about that time, the Christian movement gave rise to a serious disturbance. There was a man called Demetrios, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis and provided a great deal of employment for the craftsmen. He called a meeting of these men and the workers in allied trades, and addressed them. 'Men', he said, 'you know that our high standard of living depends on this industry. And you see and hear how this fellow Paul with his propaganda has perverted crowds of people, not only at Ephesos, but also in practically the whole of the province of Asia. He is telling them that gods made by human hands are not gods at all. There is danger for us here; it is not only our line of business will be discredited, but also the sanctuary of the great goddess Artemis will cease to command respect; and then it will not be long before she who is worshipped by all Asia and the civilised world is brought down form her divine pre-eminence.' When they heard this they were roused with fury and shouted, 'Great is Artemis of the Ephesians' (Megale he Artemis Ephesian). The whole city was in confusion; they seized Paul's travelling-companions, the Macedonians Gaius and Aristarchos, and made a concerted rush with them into the theatre. Paul wanted to appear before the ekklesia but the other Christians would not let him. Even some dignitaries of the province, who were

friendly towards him, sent and urged him not to venture into the theatre. Meanwhile some were shouting one thing, some another; for the assembly was in confusion and most of them did not know what they had all come for. But some of the crowd explained the trouble to Alexander, whom the Jews had pushed to the front, and he, motioning for silence, attempted to make a defence before the

176Acts

19: 25-27.

Seats and Civic Memory

239

assembly. But when they recognised that he was a Jew, a single cry arose from them all: for about two hours they kept on shouting, 'Great is Artemis of the Ephesians'.

By this stage the disturbance involved far more than merely the silversmiths, with a large section of the Ephesian population shouting acclamations. 177 This was exactly the kind of unrest, stasis, that made the Roman authorities so suspicious, and for which they tended to blame private associations (in this case, apparently with good reason). The fact that the silversmiths took their grievances to the theatre shows not only that this was the natural place in which to express popular feeling, but also that they thought they themselves had a natural place there. CONCLUSIONS This chapter has been the third and final part of my investigation into civic rituals in the cities of the Roman East, and into the place of private associations in these rituals. In this chapter I have used a normative source: the seating inscriptions found in the auditoria of theatres and amphitheatres. I have investigated the evidence concerning the places allocated to the members of private associations based on shared occupation or trade. I have argued that auditoria were privileged sites where shared ideas about the social order were acted out in public rituals whose meaning depended (partly) on the role of the audience. Seating arrangements helped the members of the public to make a statement about their own places in the city. Classical Greek theatres can be seen as monuments to a civic ideology which emphasised the political equality of citizens, whereas Roman auditoria appear to have expressed the idea that civic identity was based on membership of a status group within a greater hierarchy of orders. Private collegia frequently had places reserved for them in tQ,e auditoria of the Roman provinces. Members of the plebs watched the plays, contests and other performances that were part of civic rituals from officially designated areas of the auditoria, together with their fellow tradesmen. Our evidence about the relative locations of these seats is limited, but there is no reason to assume that collegia were usually relegated to a single area, or to marginal seats at the backs of the auditoria. Although there is some evidence that the ancient auditoria were sometimes the location for expressions of popular sentiment that led to riots and disturbances, in which collegia were sometimes involved, this does not seem to have affected the position of the collegia very much. Seats reserved for collegia were found in various 177For the political importance of acclamations, see Roueche (1984) and (1989 b), and Weiss (1991).

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positions (in a few cases, fairly prominent ones) amidst the seats reserved for the city's official bodies and institutions. This is one more indication that membership of a collegium was considered a respectable source of social identity that helped to integrate the plebs media into the hierarchy of status groups that constituted the social order in Roman provincial towns.

THE CIVIC WORLD OF PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS IN THE GREEK EAST CONCLUSIONS

CONCLUSIONS THE CIVIC WORLD OF PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS IN THE GREEK EAST In this study I have attempted to reconstruct some aspects of the mentalite of the craftsmen and traders of the Greek cities under Roman rule by examining epigraphic evidence concerning their membership of collegia (in other words, private associations based on shared profession, cult or residence, and on the ties of friendship). Traditional scholarship has in general adopted a narrow formalinstitutional and antiquarian approach to the collegia, ignoring the social and cultural implications of membership. Moreover, the sources from which we derive our information about the associations of the eastern provinces have not been explored systematically, with the result that our picture of them has been one-sided and unsatisfactory. I hope that my research has proved beyond all reasonable doubt that forming collegia was a widespread practice in the Roman East. Before I present my conclusions concerning collegia, I should restate my approach to the epigraphic sources. A main tenet of my thesis is that inscriptions are not a straightforward and unproblematic record of reality; rather, they are themselves an important element of the practices and strategies (self-definition, differentiation, competition, emulation, etc.) that make up social reality. I have argued that in social and economic terms the members of collegia occupied a middling position of which the Latin term plebs media seems a particularly apt description. We have seen that the inscriptions set up by members of these associations provide us with a valuable perspective upon the historical experiences and expectations of the plebs media during a period when the traditional environment of the polis was undergoing a crucial transformation. The first part of my study investigated the epigraphic evidence concerning the activities of collegia in two different social contexts. In chapter one, by examining the funerary epigraphy of the Roman collegia, I investigated how the members of these collegia represented themselves and their colleagues and friends at death. During the first three centuries AD more people than ever before had access to formal burial, of which a funerary inscription was the most conspicuous element. The relatively large number of funerary inscriptions set up by collegia during this period shows that many individuals relied upon their colleagues to perform their last rites

244

Conclusions

and commemorative ceremonies, underlining the importance of this form of sociability in everyday life. The epitaphs of the first three centuries AD usually included some indication of the occupation of the deceased, which suggests that for many members of the plebs media work had become an important source of social identity. Reference to membership of an occupational association helped to place this identity in a wider social context. The funerary arrangements of collegia (their construction of tombs, their participation in funerals) also reveal a desire to emphasise internal hierarchies: collegia used funerary practices to negotiate individual distinctions within the group as well as to construct a collective identity. It is significant that the funerary epigraphy of collegia puts much emphasis on their social conformism. This was no doubt a factor in their collaboration in the funerary arrangements of the relatively wealthy outsiders who entrusted the care of their tombs to collegia, and who endowed them with modest foundations for the celebration of commemorative rituals. These self-commemorators used mortuary behaviour as a strategy of self-aggrandisement, but the collegia benefited from this, being presented alongside respectable and offical institutions of civic life as trustworthy, reliable organisations. This evidence shrinks the myth of the dangerous and rowdy collegium back down to its proper dimensions. Members of the elite tended not to include collegia in their funerary arrangements, but they were willing to act as their benefactors on other occasions. The inscriptions commemorating such relationships were the subject of my second chapter, in which I discussed the various benefits derived by collegia from these relationships. It is obvious that the collegia were dependent on the benefactors who covered the costs of their social life, especially by providing them with clubhouses and paying for their banquets. There is also some evidence that patrons assisted collegia in the pursuit of their economic interests. As benefactors they provided them with the essential infrastructure of their professions, as magistrates they offered them preferential treatment and protection, and as advocates they helped them in their dealings with the Roman state. I have suggested that we should see these acts of patronage and euergetism (it is not always possible to make the distinction) primarily as gifts or counter-gifts within a system of symbolic exchange. Patrons received honorific monuments bearing inscriptions that perpetuated their names and the names of their families in civic memory. To the recipients such monuments were a form of symbolic capital, a major source of the prestige that was the basis of the social and political power of the urban elites. These monuments allowed the leading citizens to re-invent themselves as a separate group in the city, as a ruling order of councillors.

Conclusions

245

Elites kept the use of honorific monuments under strict control, and honorific monuments for 'ordinary people' were not usually allowed in the city centre. However, statues and honorific monuments also honoured the dedicants, whose names could be found in the accompanying inscriptions. Most of the honorific monuments standing on public sites had been set up by the city's official institutions. The private collegia were nevertheless given access to public space: they were sometimes allowed to honour their own benefactors in public places, they honoured public benefactors, and they helped the boulai and demoi of some cities to put up honorific statues and monuments (acting, as it were, as an executive branch of local government). Honorific epigraphy provided the collegia with a vehicle for what may be described as 'status association' with the city's official institutions. By using the same honorific language as the assemblies and the councils, they were seen to subscribe to the world view that lay behind it. They presented themselves not as one of the problems the authorities had to deal with, but rather as loyal and dependable sections of the city community, and as integral elements of the social order. Commemorations of the 'private' activities and relations of the collegia appear to have addressed a wider public. Epigraphy was used to transform private activities into public events: epitaphs, dedications and honorific inscriptions spoke a public language which aimed to present the associations of craftsmen and traders as 'status groups' alongside others that were long-established and publicly recognised. In the second part of this study I investigated how successful collegia were in this form of epigraphic self-fashioning by looking at their role in public ceremonial. The large number of public inscriptions that deal with various aspects of a growing number of civic festivals and ceremonies indicates that these were a major preoccupation of public life in the post-classical polis. I have argued that the organisation of these festivals and celebrations may have had economic consequences for the members of the professional collegia, but their real significance lay elsewhere. Taking my lead from certain modem interpretations of civic ritual in medieval and early modem Europe, I argued that ancient public rituals can profitably be analysed as a medium for the negotiation of social roles and collective identities. Public ceremonial served as a symbolic expression of civic concerns, particularly those to do with the ideal arrangement of society. Public ceremonies in the Roman East reinforced a hierarchical conception of society within which identity was derived from membership of a status group constructed along the lines of a Roman

ordo. It is interesting, however, that this hierarchical scheme was perceived by different people in different ways, depending on their own status. Thus, the collegia

246

Conclusions

were allocated a specific part in the social universe of the local elites, but featured only rarely in the world view of the imperial elite. I have investigated the role of the collegia in public ceremony in the context of three important aspects of public ceremonial. In chapter four I discussed public banquets and distributions. The evidence shows a clear social pattern behind the organisation of public food-giving and food-sharing rituals. Participation in these rituals was negotiated through membership of one or more subsections of the city, treated differently according to their standing in society. Most of these groups had a recognised civic character. It has long been known that professional collegia were frequently included in banquets and distributions in Italy and the West, but I have demonstrated that they were sometimes also included in similar events in the East. The differences between East and West in this respect appear to have been exaggerated. In chapter five I discussed the role of professional associations in public processions. We have, unfortunately, little epigraphic evidence relevant to this aspect of their activities, but literary sources show private associations parading through the streets of their home towns. It is noteworthy that they seem to have participated with some frequency in imperial triumphs and welcoming ceremonies alongside magistrates and soldiers. This suggests that ordinary people, as seen from the imperial centre, were good subjects only when engaged in a craft or trade and organised into an association. Chapter six made use of a normative source: the seating inscriptions that marked reserved places in the auditoria of Roman theatres, amphitheatres and stadia. The evidence suggests that the members of the plebs media watched the games, plays and races, often together with their colleagues, from officially designated areas of the auditoria. There is no reason to believe that the seating arrangements were designed to marginalise the associations of craftsmen and traders. Collegia can be found in between official city institutions, and sometimes even seem to have had fairly conspicuous seats, in prominent positions. When put together, this evidence suggests that in the post-classical polis private associations were granted a festive identity that corresponded to their social ambitions and aspirations. It also suggests that private associations based on occupations were considered a legitimate source of social identity beyond as well as inside their own circles. The increasing epigraphic visibility attained by lower-class associations should be seen against the background of the transformation of the independent Greek polis into a subject city within a world empire. This development, which began in the

Conclusions

247

Hellenistic period but culminated under Roman rule, created a need to redefine the relationships between citizens and their cities. A new model of society was constructed, based no longer upon the isonomy of citizens, but upon a hierarchy of status groups, effectively and symbolically integrated into an imperial framework. This process, which we can call ordo-making, started with the local elites who reinvented themselves as an (ideally) hereditary order of councillors, but was not limited to them. Successful demotai without immediate access to political sources of prestige imitated and adapted this model of social organisation, often assuming the symbolic behaviour of the local orders. Epigraphy was instrumental in this process, commemorating in a deliberate and intentionally enduring way the status aspirations of civic groups. The epigraphic representation attained by the private collegia imitated the epigraphic forms of the elite, and this may have helped them to define and negotiate a place in a changing civic environment. In this way, hierarchy was not only accepted; it was internalized and reproduced across the entire social spectrum.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX 1: I. HISTRIA 57 I. HISTRIA 571

'Aya8~L TUXTJL. "Eoo~E Tfj ~ouA.fj rnt Tcji otjµ41· OuA.mos 6.T]µtj-

Tptos- EhEv, ETTLt(lTJ¢t(oµ€vou 6.t0y€vous 0E08wpou· ErrEto~ "A~a 'EKarniou Tou Eu~Evl8ou 8uyciTTJP yuv~ OE 'HpciKovTos 'AptcTToµcixou, yov€wv TE Ematjµwv Kat rrpoy6vwv Emcj>avEO"TciTwv

ofoa, Kat ouoEµtav cj>tA.onµ(av ~ AELTOupy(av Efoxtjµova rraplJTT]µEvwv, cl.AA.a Ka't aTEcj>avT]cj>opias rnt LEpwauvas Kat cipxas rnt EmµEA.das Kat rrciaas OT]µOTEAELS xopT]ytas ~ Kat Ev86~ous

urrEpT]atas civurrEp~A.tjTws EKTETEAEKO-

[Tw]v Kat rrciaT]s E~mp€Tou TELµ~s TETUXTJKO[Twv, µ]tKpov ~rTJaaµEvTJ T~v cirro µ6vou TOD [y€vous µE]yaA.auxiav Et µ~ Kat T~v cirro T~s toias [rrpos TO]v o[~µov] EU1TOLLaS rrpoaKTtjamTO 86~av, [Kat o]ta TOuTo LEp[wau]vriv MriTpos- 8Ewv auTrnciyyEA.[Tos- civ]aA.a~oDaa, OU µ6[v]ov aaa O"Eµvwv )'UVULKWV KUL [tEpEtw]v Ka't Tou rraA.mo[u atwv ]os ~v 'L8ta µEyaA.ocj>p6vws Ka't EuyEvws rn't E[u]a[E~w]s ETEAEO"Ev, cl.AA.a rn't aam µEyciA.m Twv civopwv ¢tA.oT[dµwv cip]XLEpwauvm ~Kat nvEs c'iA.A.m xopT]ytm Ka't Ta[u]Tas [µt]µtjaaa8m arrouoaaaaa · rrpwTov µEv Eu8us Tas rrpwrns rrpoa68ous Kat 8ua(as Kat Euxas To'Ls 8Eo1s rrotouµEVTJ T~v Tou €Tous cipx~v µET' Eucj>poauvTJs Ka't Euwxias µEyaA.orrprnous E1TOLtjaaTO TOL[S µE]V yap ~OUAEUTa'Ls rraaw Kat )'EpOUO"LaO"Ta'Ls Kal Tau-

ptaaTa'Ls Kai. taTpo'Ls rn\. rrm8EuTa1s Kai. TOLS to(q. lsee also: Popescu (1960); BE (1958), 336 (fin); BE (1962), 239; Pleket (1969), 33-35, no. 21; SEG 30, 796.

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Kat Ee 6v6µaTos Ka>..ouµEvoLs EK 8fo KaT'av8pa 8T]vap[(]wv 8wvo[µ]i]v, ~v ourrw ns a>..AT] rrp6TEpov, €8wKEV To1s 8E: E[v] rn1s ¢u>..a1s KaTa TTEVTTJKOvTapx(av 8LaVEVEµT]µ[E]VOLS, ETL µijv Kat uµv(jl8o1s Kat TE-

KTWCTLV Kat tEporr[>..a]Td Tms ml 'HpaKAELaarn1s otvorr6[a ]Lov, OaOV Ol E[TTt T]o1s µeyci>..ms ov6µaaw LAOTEL-

µouµ[EV ]OL, µETa [8E TOU ]To TTclUlJ VEOµT]VLQ. Kat rrciams rn[ts E]v E:Kcia[T4J µT]vfl 8ua(ms Kat foprn1s Kal rraTpLOLS Eu[xa1s] 8[mjnJ..foT]arn ml tEporrprnfornrn EeurrlJpE[TTJaEv· 0aa] yap T~s E8(µou tEporroLtas civa>..wµarn a[uT(Ka €8E]eaTO, ml 0aa urrE:p EUaE~das €rrEv6EL rrciv[rn ¢L>..]oTdµws ETTOLTJCTEV, TWV µE:v civava>..wµciTW[v KaT]a¢povi]aaaa, T~S 8E: EU8oe(as ouK OAL ywpi]aa[aa T]EAEL · Kat rrapEm8T]µouvTwv TLvwv TWV TE [rrEpl TO]v

8~µov

8uvaµEvwv Kal Tou

rr>..i]8ous ws E ....ELV .... Eav auTwv atTouµfrwv ml Twv µa>..>..[ov ............. .]wv civa8uoµEvwv ou8E:v TOUTWV ........... ~µEpav ~v i]8EAT]aEv ~ rr6>..Ls Tw[v ........ ] rraaw €8wKEv ml rn-

86>..ou 8L 'o>..[ou .......... ]v Kat

yuvm~lv

L>..o-

TELµoTciTT] K[al cieLwTciTTJ yE]yovEv· 8E86x8m ETT1Jv~a8m

µE:[v fol TOuTms· civay]opEu[rn]8m 8E: ml

CTTE¢avou[a8m "A~av 'Ernrn(ou EV rraaw E]oprn1s, µE[TE]XELV 8E: au[Tijv KaL TWV a>..Awv] TELµwv El[ ..... Kal] ELK6VWV y[paTTTWV - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ]

- - - -E I~r - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - AA - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - For lines 43-47 the ed. pr. suggests: rrAi]8ous ws E[TL aA>..T]v 8wp]Eav? auTwv atTouµEvwv ml TWv µu>..A[ov ¢opnKwv nv]wv? civa8uoµEvwv ou8E:v TOUTWV [ciTTT]')'6pEuaE Kal Ets Ti)v] ~µEpav ~v i]8EAT]CTEV ~ rr6>..Ls Tw[v 'laTpLTJVWV ?] rruaLv €8wKEv Kat Ka-

86>..ou 8L 'o>..[ou xp6vou (sive hous) ETT' civ8pciaL]V KaL yuvmelv ¢LAO-

Appendices

253

APPENDIX 2: COLLEGIA IN PUBLIC COMMENSALITY IN THE WEST CIL 5, 7905: Alpes Maritimae, Cemenelum. collegia tria. Epulum for decuriones and Seviri, oleum for three collegia, officiales and populus. CIL 5, 7920: Alpes Maritimae, Cemenelum. collegia. Divisio of sportulae of 2 denarii to the decuriones, Seviri Augusta/es urbani, officiales . To the collegia l den. panem et vinum, and oil to the populus (men and women). CIL 8, 16556: Numidia, Theveste. forenses. Sportulae to decuriones and imperial freedmen, forenses, amici, curiae and Augustales. Wine to populus. CIL 9, 3842: Regio IV, Marsi Antinum. collegium dendrophorum. Epulum to decuriones (HS9), Augustales (HS8), dendrophori (HS12),plebs urbana (HS4). CIL 10, 451: collegia dendrophororum quinquennales, ex-duoviri, Augustales (HS12), collegia and visceratio.

Regio III, Eburum. et fabrorum. Sportulae to patrons of collegia and ex-aediles (HS20), condecuriones (HS18), (HSlOOO per collegium) and an epulum. Plebs (HS?)

CIL 10, 1881: Regio I, Puteoli. ingenui et veterani corporati. Sportulae to decuriones (HS12), Augustales (HS8) (both categories receive also epulum), collegia (HS6), municipes (HS3). CIL 10, 1890: Regio I, Puteoli. ingenui corporati. Fragment of inscription, collegia are included in public distribution. CIL 10, 3699: Regio I, Cumae. dendrophori. Public banquets offered to dendrophori at the occasion of their election. CIL 10, 5796: Regio I, Verulae. dendrophori. Sportulae to decuriones, Seviri and Augus tales (4 Den.), dendrophori (3 den. and bread and wine), populus (1 den.). CIL 11, 4589: Regio VI, Carsulae. collegiati. Fragment mentions distribution to Seviri, iuvenes, collegiati and populus utriusque sexus. CIL 11, 6053: Regio VI, Urvinum Mataurense. omnia collegia. Sportulae to decuriones (5 den.), omnia collegia (4 den.), plebs and honore usi (3 den.).

254

Appendices

CIL 11, 6070: Regio VI, Pisaurum. centonarii. Fragment mentions distributions to honore usi (2 den.), cu/tores domi Augustae, centonarii, contributors to building (?) and decuriones (amounts unknown). (Possibly joins together with 6071). CIL 11, 6071: Regio VI, Pisaurum. collegiati. Foundation with sportulae for collegiati, cu/tores domi Augustae and decuriones. (Possibly joins together with 6070). CIL 11, 6378: Regio VI, Pisaurum. collegia fabrum, centonariorum, dendrophororum. Distributions of sportulae to decuriones (5 den.), collegia (2 den.), plebs (l den.). CIL 12, 372: Gallia Narbonensis. collegium utriculariorum. Distributions to plebs utriusque sexus and collegium. CIL 12, 697: Gallia Narbonensis, Arelate. forenses, navicularii. Distributions to Augusta/es and collegia. CIL 12, 5905: Gallia Narbonensis, Nemausus. collegia. Distributions to decuriones and collegia (amounts uknown). Epulum to Seviri. CIL 13, 1921: Gallia Lugdunensis, Lugdunum. negotiatores vinarii, omnia corpora Luguduni licite coeuntia. Distributions to decuriones (5 den.), ordo equester, Augusta/es, negotiatores vinarii (3 den.). CIL 14, 2793: Regio I, Gabii. tabernarii intra murum negotiantes. Distributions to decuriones (5 den.), Seviri Augusta/es (3 den.), tabernarii (l den.). And foundation to city for epulum for Decuriones and Augusta/es.

Appendices

255

APPENDIX 3: COLLEGIA IN PUBLIC COMMENSALITY IN THE EAST BE (1994), 102 Caria, Iasos: EPETat (ferrymen). Public distribution for council and magistrates combined with foundation for ferrymen. I. Histria 57 Moesia, Histria: TaUpEaCJTat, LaTpo(, lTat8EUTa(, uµvw8o( TEKTOVES, LEpOlTAUTELTaL (cult association, physicians, teachers, hymnodoi, builders, neighbourhood). Public banquets and distributions to several social categories. I. Histria 61 Moesia, Histria: TauprncrTat (cult association). Cult association included in public distributions. I. Priene 111 Ionia, Priene: TEXVlTat, (aTpo(, ciAEllTTat, npoyuµvacrTaL (technitai, physicians, masseurs, trainers). Festival arrangements include distributions to athletes and members of their entourage.

IG 5.1, 208

Laconia, Sparta: glypheus, psilinopoios, bapheus, grammateus, hyperates, mageiros. Individuals take part in public cult banquet -as representatives of their profession?

IG 5.1, 209 Laconia, Sparta: keryx, mantis, auletes, kitharistes, didaskalos, architekton, glypheus, chrysotes, kostes, paianias, psilinopoios, kathartas, grammateus, rogeus, anagnostas, hepesatas, parochos, artokopos, stephanopoles, mageiros. Individuals take part in public cult banquets as representatives of their profession? IG 7, 2712 Boiotia, Akraiphia: ot CJKT}VLTat Kal o-uvKOo-µouvTE