‘‘Well you know,’’ said Dio, haranguing his native city in Bithynia, ‘‘that it is natural for a city’s pride, its people’s dignity, and its reputation with visitors and governors to be enhanced by its buildings, by its festivals, and by the fact that its citizens are immune from judicial scrutiny by outsiders and are not bunched together in the official reckoning like some village... ’’ (D. Chr. 40.10). In order to be more than a village, a city had to qualify in terms of size. The largest Greek city was Alexandria, half the size of Rome, with a population at its peak of about half a million. Then came Antioch, Apamea, and Palmyra, with perhaps 200,000, and Ephesus with 150,000. A small city might have only 50 people in its council, and a population of a few thousand. A city also needed enough men of means to serve as councilors. It needed architectural amenities. And it needed imperial initiative or permission to change its status (on these requirements see the reasoning of Constantine in response to an upgrade petition from Orcistus: Mitchell 1993: 1: 179).
There was in fact a patchwork of city statuses. Some cities were Roman coloniae (Corinth, Berytus), which were free of direct taxation. A pre-existing Greek city could be upgraded to the rank of colonia by imperial permission and given a Latin name referring to the imperial family like ‘‘Caesarea’’ or ‘‘Hadrianopolis’’ (A. H. M. Jones 1971; Millar 1993b: 238). These cities would technically also be coloniae, but without any Roman settlers and usually not free of direct taxes. Some cities were ‘‘free and autonomous’’ in the sense that they could use their own laws and were exempt from the governor’s visits and judicial supervision; some enjoyed various degrees of tax-free status ( ateleia, immunitas), usually temporary or removing indirect taxes only (Pliny Ep. 10.47; Millar 1977: 430-1).
Some cities functioned as the provincial capital, serving as the governor’s seat and proudly claiming the title of‘‘Metropolis’’ or ‘‘first city of Bithynia.’’ (It could be a point of pride for a smaller place to style itself ‘‘seventh city’’ of its province.) The governor would also visit other important cities on his judicial rounds; an assize-center was a busy and important place.
Some cities were distinguished by an imperial temple (Friesen 1993); others were famed for their ties to ancient religious shrines. Ephesus had a famous temple of Artemis; Delphi and Claros near Colophon had oracles of Apollo. Delegations from distant cities came there to consult the god, often accompanied by children’s choirs and, presumably, substantial support personnel. Over 300 inscriptions from the second century record the presence of these visitors at Claros (Lane Fox 1986: 171-81, with Robert and Robert 1989 and Robert 1992).
A Greek city might be a member of a koinon or league (Deininger 1965). The Lycian league took charge of common festivals and the local administration of justice. It had a distinctive system of proportional representation amongst its member cities (Strabo 14.3.3). The Galatian league likewise seems to have its roots in a sense of tribal identity (Mitchell 2000: 122-5). But each province (and sometimes discrete regions within a province) had a league of its own. These provincial koina were more generally ‘‘Hellenic’’ in their identity; their activities centered around the imperial cult. Each league had a sort of president. The ‘‘Macedoniarch,’’ for example, was the official in charge of the koinon of Macedonia; he was sometimes, but not always, high priest of the imperial cult at the provincial level (Sartre 1991: 113-16, 263). Athens was the seat of the Panhellenion, a league founded by Hadrian whose members, culled from five provinces, had to be able to prove descent from one of the mother-cities of Old Greece (Spawforth and Walker 1985, 1986; C. P. Jones 1996). Competition for membership could exacerbate local rivalries: Cyrene, a member-city in North Africa, apparently tried to blackball the membership application of an upstart provincial neighbor that was, though technically a Greek city, no match for Cyrene’s ancient pedigree (Oliver and Clinton 1989: 274-8; C. P. Jones 1996).
World History
