One of the reasons Romans felt entitled to rule Greeks was the Greeks’ proclivity to quarrel amongst themselves. The competitive spirit that infused the performances of rival sophists also informed relations between rival cities (Sartre 1991: 190-8). There were rivalries of long standing between Ephesus and Pergamum and Ephesus and Smyrna, between Prusa and Apameia, Tyre and Sidon, Nicaea and Nicomedia. Nicomedia was the Metropolis of Bithynia, and wanted to be the only city claiming the title of‘‘First City of Bithynia,’’ which Nicaea, a city of more ancient foundation, also claimed (Robert 1977). These titles affected how one city was regarded by others, since they constituted a ranking system that determined the order in which delegations from various cities were seated at games and the place they took in processions at sacred festivals. Three cities claimed the title ‘‘First City of Asia.’’ One of these, Ephesus, entitled itself, ‘‘First and Greatest Metropolis of Asia, Warden of Two Temples of the Emperor by decree of the Sacred Senate, Temple-Warden of Artemis, Friend of Augustus, the City of the Ephesians,’’ while Smyrna claimed to be ‘‘First in Asia in Beauty and Size, The Most Famous, the Metropolis, Warden of Three Temples of the Emperor by decree of the Sacred Senate, Ornament of Ionia, the City of the Smyrnians’’ (Sartre 1991: 196). It was the emperor who ultimately had the authority to bestow or remove these titles, and as the Greek cities competed for them, they structured themselves into a hierarchy.
These inter-city rivalries had consequences: they could affect how cities were treated by Rome. Dio warned the Nicomedians that their passion for elaborate civic titles was mocked in Rome as the ‘‘Hellenic handicap.’’ He was acutely aware of how bad governors could play rival cities off against one another to ensure that they were never called to account for their wrong-doing (D. Chr. 38.36-8). And if civic rivalry expressed itself in grandiose building plans, it made it all the easier for Romans to send in a corrector to reorganize city finance. Sometimes rivalries became violent. During the civil war of 193-4 ce between Severus and Niger, Nicaea, ‘‘out of hatred of Nicomedia,’’ took the opposite side - which lost - and Nicaea, among other punishments, lost the title of ‘‘First City of Bithynia’’ (Herod. 3.2.9; Robert 1977). In Syria, Laodicea and Antioch took civil war as an opportunity to spite each other, as did Berytus and Tyre, with similarly disastrous consequences for the losing side. One can well see how the Romans might feel that the Greek cities would ruin themselves if left to their own devices (Dio 52.37.10).
Thus whenever we see coinage celebrating ‘‘concord’’ between two cities, with Asclepius of Pergamum, for example, depicted exchanging harmonious glances with Cybele of Smyrna, it is worth asking why that statement was needed (examples in Mitchell 1993: 1: 204-6). Although epigraphic decorum did not permit unpleasant matters to be mentioned directly, the proud titles cities gave themselves, along with the slogans and images they put on their coins can, if read carefully, reveal discordant social undercurrents. Sophist-statesmen would sometimes try to tackle these problems in their speechmaking (C. P. Jones 1978: 83-94), and it is perhaps their efforts that should be credited with seasons of ‘‘concord,’’ however fleeting.
There were rivalries within individual cities as well. We see the flour-sifters’ and dough-kneaders’ associations in Side making a joint dedication to ‘‘concord,’’ presumably an attempt to make peace after some fracas, in imitation of the gestures practiced by their social superiors in the pursuit of high diplomacy (van Nijf 1997: 15 n. 25). The price of bread was a key ingredient in social stability, and riots and lynchings might be the consequence of a shortage. Landowners might be tempted to withhold their stocks from the market in hopes of higher prices; as a result, the situation would further deteriorate. There were bad harvests in Syria during the years 382-4 ce, when Libanius was active as a sophist in Antioch. The populace at first blamed the Council (landowners all), and the governor summoned supplementary supplies, but bread prices kept rising. Then the emperor’s Supreme Representative in the East (an administrative innovation of the late empire) tried to urge the bakers’ corporation to adopt more reasonable prices voluntarily. He was reluctant to use force lest they simply leave town. But this moderate approach earned him accusations that he was taking bribes, so the Supreme Representative switched to more coercive tactics. He had the bakers arrested and strung up on the rack in the agora. He had already flogged six of them, and was starting in on the seventh, asking with every stroke to whom had they given bribes to be able to charge such high prices for their bread, when Libanius arrived on the scene, parted the gaping mob with his hands, and launched into a long reproachful speech about the injustice and folly of these tactics. A riot was just around the corner (Lib. Or. 1.205-8). Here we see the coercive force of the Roman rulers brought into play by the failure of local efforts to control a crisis. This is just the sort of intervention that the secretary of the boule at Ephesus tried to head off when he told the silversmiths protesting Paul’s preaching to disperse from the theater. ‘‘For we are in danger of being charged with rioting today... ’’ (Acts 19:23-41, cf Plut. Mor. 814B-815B).
In these episodes we see elite individuals using a combination of rhetorical skill and physical courage to check a violent official and control a violent crowd. The ability to exert control over self and others in this way was one of the fruits of paideia training. Crowds that lacked education were deemed to lack self-control. Hence we see Dio attempting a persuasive redefinition when he urges the citizens of Prusa to ‘‘render your city truly Hellenic and free from rioting.... For there is, friends, a kind of paideia even of the people, and a civic character that is fond of wisdom and reasonable’’ (D. Chr. 44.10-11).
World History
