It might sometimes be necessary to appeal to the emperor. A freedman of the emperor Claudius had managed to set up an extortion racket in Cibyra that brought him 3,000 denarii a year. But Cibyra had a distinguished citizen, extremely wealthy and already possessed of Roman citizenship, who was able to go to Rome and persuade Claudius to recall his corrupt agent (IGRR 4.914). In provinces like Egypt where the emperor, not the Senate, selected the governor, appeals against maladministration had to go to the emperor himself. When Philo led a delegation representing the Jews of Alexandria to the emperor Gaius in 40 ce, the Greeks of that city sent a counter-delegation. This delegation suborned the emperor’s valet, an Alexandrian ex-slave, to poison his mind against the Jews by ridiculing their customs at every opportunity (Philo Leg. 166-78). The Jewish delegation tried without success to neutralize this informal channel of disinformation. When they found Gaius in his mother’s garden on the banks of the Tiber, he seemed at first to be well-disposed, and sent them to schedule an official hearing with his secretary (181). However, the secretary stonewalled, and no official invitation materialized.
The Jewish delegation followed the emperor in his pleasure-seeking peregrinations down to the Bay of Naples, where they received the disastrous news that Gaius had ordered a cult statue of himself set up in the Temple in Jerusalem (188). When at last Gaius gave them an audience, he was back in Rome supervising various improvements in his gardens. Things began badly: he addressed the Jews as haters of God, inasmuch as they denied his divinity. At this, the Greek delegation jumped for joy and pointedly acclaimed his Divine Majesty (354). Things got worse: Gaius began to stroll through his construction projects intermittently giving orders about interior decoration and catechizing the Jews about their beliefs (‘‘Why don’t you eat pork?’’). He made no attempt to restrain the Greek ambassadors, who became increasingly jubilant and disrespectful, and finally dismissed the delegations without a definite answer. The despair of the five Jewish ambassadors, who had been hoping for a clear-cut exemption from the demands of imperial cult, was compounded by the fact that certain individuals in the palace who had hitherto seemed supportive gave clear indications now that they had run out of enthusiasm (372).
Not every embassy ended in humiliation and disaster, but this episode with Gaius gives us a rare glimpse of how bad they could get. In fact, most of what we know about embassies comes from the epigraphic record, and the epigraphic record is thoroughly biased in favor of success. When ambassadors returned with a favorable answer, their cities inscribed the emperor’s letter on the side of a public building or on a specially dedicated wall (Potter 1994: 117-20). The successful ambassador would be voted a package of honors: a public crowning, a front-row seat in the theater, and perhaps a statue, on whose base a list of his accomplishments on behalf of the city would be incised.
At the emperor’s accession, embassies of congratulation would come from cities all over the Greek world, bringing him gold crowns and often a petition that he confirm their previous privileges (on embassies and requests made to the emperor see Millar 1977: 228-40; 385-447). To these requests it cost him nothing to say yes. In the later empire, this congratulatory practice of ‘‘crown gold’’ evolved into something much more like a tax (Millar 1977: 140-4). If an embassy requested new privileges, the emperor often had to adjudicate between rival claimants and assess the impact on the treasury. When he could afford it, he might bestow significant largess on a city suffering from earthquake damage, or award a temporary remission of taxes to a region troubled by crop failure. He might give money for building projects (perhaps thinking privately to himself, as Trajan wrote to Pliny, ‘‘these Greeklings must have their gymnasia’’; Pliny Ep. 10. 40). Imperial windfalls were not automatic: asking for them was a little like playing a slot machine. But one could decrease the chances of ridicule and increase the odds of success by sending an ambassador whose wealth, social connections, and education would command respect in Rome.
World History
