Greek cities characteristically harnessed the energy and assets of their wealthiest citizens to provide public services. This was necessary because Greek cities under Roman rule lacked direct powers of taxation (Sartre 1991: 133). A city could collect rents from municipal real estate, fines for various infractions, and perhaps some customs duties, but the architectural amenities and communal activities that made urban life worth living required deep pockets. The general term for the practice of wealthy citizens providing funds for civic purposes is euergetism, the ‘‘doing of good deeds.’’ The donor of funds was known as a euergetist. This practice had a long history in the ancient world (Veyne 1976). But it reached its apogee in the Greek cities of the Roman Empire, leaving behind an enormous architectural and epigraphic legacy that scholars are still working hard to absorb.
A euergetist might exercise his or her beneficence while serving as a magistrate or performing a liturgy. Strictly speaking, a magistracy was an elected office with executive responsibility, while a liturgy was a quasi-voluntary financial obligation. But because municipal revenues were perennially inadequate to meet the expectations of the citizens, magistrates were often, like liturgists, expected to meet the expenses of office out of their own private wealth (see also Gagos and Potter, this volume).
The well-to-do provided the following public services for their fellow-citizens: superintending the deliberations of city government, financing the baths and gymnasia, supervising markets and the food supply, and funding festivals. The eponymous magistrate lent his name to the calendar year (each city had its own name for this official); the Secretary of the Council would superintend political business. We have already encountered the generosity of Menodora the gymnasiarch. The agoranomos, an official in charge of markets, had to see to the upkeep of his city’s harbor facilities and commercial district. What is more, he was expected to keep grain prices stable. This might require a personal subvention (Sartre 1991: 139). Some wealthy citizens served in more than one capacity: one superstar euergetist from Apamea performed the duties of both gymnasiarch and agoranomos during the assize season, when the city was crowded with visitors who drove up the cost of provisions in the market and used up all the oil at the baths. Furthermore, he promised that he would himself cover the city’s usual contribution of 15,000 denarii during his son’s gymnasiarchy, and buy all the oil needed for the gymnasium during the assize (IGRR 4.788). Priests, who were not professional clergy, but wealthy citizens, often helped to finance public worship and celebrations in honor of the divinity they served. The agonothetes had the general responsibility of organizing and provisioning festivals and games. He had to manage the city’s entertainment funds, including various private endowments, and contribute out of his own resources as well. Beasts had to be bought for the preliminary sacrifices, cash prizes had to be put up for the competitions, and banquets prepared to celebrate afterwards. Banquets required entertainers as well as food: perhaps a pantomime star, or the latest crooner with his cithara (Dio deplores the ruinous practice of courting popularity with extravagant public entertainments in Oration 66).
Besides giving public entertainments, wealthy citizens competed for reputation by funding new public buildings. Construction projects were a grand way to leave one’s
Figure 12.1a The entrance to the agora at Ephesus, modeled on a Roman triumphal arch, was erected by Mazaeus and Mithridates, two freedmen of Augustus
Figure 12.1b The marble street at Ephesus. Along the western edge was a gallery of columns, constructed between 54 and 59 ce, supporting a Doric style ceiling. There was also a columned portico on the eastern side. It was an admirable area to place inscriptions honoring civic benefactors mark, but could become quagmires of mismanagement. Pliny complained to Trajan that Nicaea was trying to build a theater on soggy ground: 10 million spent and the whole thing sinking. Dio tried to beautify his native city by tearing down some dilapidated commercial buildings and replacing them with a fancy marble portico. To begin with, he obtained a letter of endorsement and some funds from the emperor. Dio also promised to contribute a substantial sum himself. Other subscribers signed on, but never paid up. Convinced that the project was being delayed by peculation, the people began to protest and became so riotous that the assembly was shut down by the proconsul (D. Chr. 40, 47, 48; C. P. Jones 1978: 111-14). The paper trail resumes when we find Dio arraigned before the next proconsul by a rival professor of philosophy. It was alleged that he had erected a statue of the emperor inside a mausoleum (thus committing sacrilege), and was, furthermore, in arrears in the auditing of his portico accounts (Pliny Ep. 10.81 and 58-60). We do not know how this mess was resolved, but we can guess: Dio was a cultivated person who had connections with the emperor, while his rival, though locally popular, was a convicted forger in the governor’s bad books.
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