The settings for these declamations were the cities themselves. Their backgrounds were varied as can be seen by surveying those of one region, Pisidia, set within the Taurus mountains, the range that runs between the southern coast of modern Turkey and the Anatolian plain. Pisidia was incorporated into the Roman province of Galatia in 25 Bc. Among its cities was the ancient settlement of Termessos. The origins of Termessos are lost but it was well enough established to be mentioned in the Iliad, there as founded by the Solyms, an otherwise obscure Anatolian tribe. Its position is magnificent, high up on precipitous rocks overlooking the narrow valley
Pass that it controlled. Alexander the Great came this way in 333, forced the pass, and hoped to take the city, but even he had to accept that it was impregnable. Even today it is a long climb up to the city’s defensive walls, an impressive feat of engineering in themselves.
The citizens of Termessos exploited their independence and chose their allies carefully. Attalus II of Pergamum awarded the city a stoa for its support and then, when Termessos sided with the Romans against Mithridates, the Roman senate granted it independent status (71 Bc). So throughout the Roman period Termessos remained self-governing, issuing coins to proclaim the fact. Typically for such cities a core of buildings from the Hellenistic era was transformed during the centuries of Roman prosperity. Hadrian awarded the city the right to hold a musical festival and there is a gateway attributed to his patronage. A new second-century road, ‘King Street, led up to the city from below and continued into the centre. The Hellenistic theatre, which has wonderful views over the mountains, was rebuilt in Roman style while the stoa of Attalus was matched by one donated by Osbaras, a wealthy citizen. The foundations of several temples from the Roman period survive. As cisterns and the remains of an aqueduct show, Termessos was dependent on a constant supply of water and the city appears to have withered when an earthquake brought down the aqueduct in the fifth century.
Thwarted by his failure to take Termessos, Alexander vented his anger on Saga-lassos, the next city to the north. He captured and sacked it. Yet the city soon recovered. Even though Sagalassos is 1,500 metres above sea level on rugged ground it overlooks a fertile plain. In the Roman period it began to flourish after a new road, the Via Sebaste, was constructed through its territory in 6 BC. It could now export grain, fruit, and fine tableware made from the clay of the region. So the city remained loyal to Rome. It acquired its first Roman citizens in the first century ad and its aristocrats were soon contributing new monuments in honour of the emperors. By the beginning of the second century ad it was the leading city of the region. Since Sagalassos was well inland and protected by its elevated position, its prosperity continued well into the fourth and fifth century. It benefited from the military activity of the third century as its grain fed the Roman fleets based on the coast. Earthquakes and plague in the sixth century finally brought the city down. The theatre, high on the mountainside, remains rent by the force of a quake.
Sagalassos is now being meticulously excavated by the University of Louvain (Belgium) and is a pleasure to visit, especially as reconstructions of the monuments in the agoras are now taking place. The city flaunted its prominent position on the mountainside. A massive temple to the emperors Hadrian and Antoninus Pius on a promontory to the south of the city could be seen from far off. The Roman visitor would enter the city along a colonnaded street of the first century ad that was level only because a major crevice had been filled in before construction. First, a lower agora would be reached through a gateway. Here on one side the visitor would find a temple to Apollo, probably built as early as the reign of Augustus, on the other a massive bath house enlarged with a third storey in the late second century. The head of an enormous statue to Hadrian has been recently found in the ruins. The agora was backed by a beautiful nymphaeum, from the period of Trajan, and steps around it led up, past a food market and after another fine Hadrianic nymphaeum, to the sumptuous upper agora. This was laid out in the reign of Augustus and was backed again by another nymphaeum from the second century ad, now restored and flowing again with water. Statues to leading citizens and monuments to the emperors made this a ceremonial centre. Perhaps the finest building is a heroon, a monument dedicated to, in this case, an unknown ‘hero, dating also from the age of Augustus, that has an exquisite frieze of fourteen dancing girls. Among the other fine buildings of the city is a library given by a local citizen in 120 ad and now again restored so that the interior can be visited.
The Via Sebaste that ran through Sagalassos’ territory continued northwards to Antioch-in-Pisidia. As its name suggests, this was a Seleucid foundation, one of many cities that Seleucus I named in memory of his father Antiochus in the third century Bc. Seleucus had fought a successful campaign against the Galatian Celts but he feared that they would expand southwards into Pisidia and then to the coast. So Antioch-in-Pisidia was part of a defensive strategy and Seleucus moved settlers in from the city of Magnesia on the Meander river in the west to populate it. The Romans too grasped its strategic importance and Augustus designated it a Roman colony, Colonia Caesarea Antiochia, with veterans granted land there. Latin rather than Greek then became its dominant language and the memory of Augustus was perpetuated through the posting of a copy of the Res Gestae, in Latin only, fragments of which have been found. There was also a Jewish community in the city and its synagogue was visited by the apostle Paul who had made his way up from Perge on the coast (Acts 13: 14). The city prospered, acquired the full panoply of Graeco-Roman buildings, and eventually became the leading city in the south of the province. When Diocletian reorganized the provinces of the empire in ad 295, Antioch-in-Pisidia became the capital of the new province of Pisidia. Its decline seems to be related to the faltering of the trade routes in the late empire—it was simply too isolated to survive.
So it is clear, simply by taking three examples from one region, how varied was the nature of the cities of the Greek east. There was essentially a patchwork of communities, vying with each other for status, often exploiting any contact they had with the emperor or governor to exalt it, and beautifying themselves against their rivals. The benefactors of the city gave (in what is known as euergetism, ‘the doing of good deeds’) a mass of elegant buildings; in return they were honoured by the city. ‘It seemed best to the Council and the people to crown Diodorus with a gold crown and to construct for him a portico in the new gymnasium in which a marble statue of him is to be erected, runs one decree.
The moment to show off came with the festivals and games each city hoped to hold, depending again on a wealthy citizen to finance them. The city would be on display, hold magnificent processions on the ancient model of the Panathenaea, and flaunt its stadium and other public buildings. The participation of each group, the members of a priesthood or an association of craftsmen, was often linked to the provision of a bull for sacrifice so that there would be enough meat for everyone to feast, a crucial component of any celebration. At Oenoanda in Lycia, one Gaius Julius Demosthenes held a festival in his own honour. Each official or group of officials and the priests of the cults of the emperor and Zeus was ordered to provide a bull. The local villages were grouped together and asked to provide two. Delegations to these festivals from neighbouring cities, ranked according to status, would come to be overawed by the grandeur of the occasion or to jeer at any mishaps.
World History
