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Staying Roman - Becoming Greek: the Roman Presence in

Greek Cities •

1 Introducing the Romans

With the arrival of the Roman legions in the cities of Greece and Asia
Minor from the second century BCE, individual Romaioi started to make
an appearance in the Greek cities:

in Latin texts they are known as the cives romani qui … negotiantur (the
Romans who are doing business) or as the Romani consistentes (the
Romans who are resident). In the Greek inscriptions we find them under
names as hoi Romaioi; hoi Romaioi pragmateuomenoi and hoi Romaioi
katoikountes.
Terminology:
Ῥωμαῖοι οἱ πραγματευόμενοι
Ῥωμαῖοι οἱ συμπραγματευόμενοι
Ῥωμαῖοι οἱ κατοικοῦντες
Ῥωμαῖοι οἱ παροικοῦντες
Ῥωμαῖοι οἱ ἐπιδημοῦντες
Ῥωμαῖοι οἱ παρεπιδημοῦντες
Ῥωμαῖοι οἱ ἐνεκτημένοι
Ῥωμαῖοι οἱ γεωργεῦντες
Ῥωμαῖοι οἱ παραγιγνομένοι
Ῥωμαῖοι οἱ ἐνγαιοῦντες
Ῥωμαῖοι οἱ παρ' αὐτοῖς ὄντες
Ῥωμαῖοι οἱ κατακληθέντες
τηβεννοφοροῦντες

A diverse terminology was used to describe a unusually high degree of

personal mobility and large scale immigration, that altered the history
and the social make-up of the Greek city for ever integrating it into the
‘globalizing world ‘of the Roman empire.1
•
This is a draft version, and the annotation is still limited.
1
The terms globliazation is of course a modern concept that is usually applied only
to the study of the modern world, mainly from an economic perspective. Although
OVN Staying Roman- Becoming Greek DRAFT VERSION 20-09-2009 2

In this paper, which is meant as preliminary study for what might

become a bigger project on cultural, religious and political connectivity
of the eastern Mediterranean
in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, I want to explore some elements
of this ancient form of globalization. I shall not consider the often
complicated ways in which the Roman state got involved with - even
entangled in - the Hellenistic East, I shall not speak about senatorial
Philhellenism, or about the political or economical motives behind
Roman imperialism. Nor shall I discuss the instruments of empire -
although tax farmers will make an appearance.

In fact my perspective will not center on Rome, but on the Greek cities,
and my focus will be on the personal mobility of the Romans who
traded and settled in the Greek cities. I am interested in these groups as
cultural and politcal brokers, and on the form and effect of their
presence in the greek cities of Roman Grece and Asia Minor

What happened to these ‘new-comers’ in the Greek city: how did they
operate, and how did they find their place in the Kosmos of the Greek
city? Did they remain a colonial elite, who merely lived inside the Greek
city, but who were not an integral part of the city? How did Romans
accommodate themselves to the social, cultural and political realities of
life in a post-classical polis? Did they develop a collective identity, and
was the place of this collective in the city?

this seems to change, as I have seen (but not yet read) studies that apply this
concept to footbal, or other cultural forms such as music. Chris Bayly has suggested
the term ‘archaic globalisation’ for earlier forms of globalising proceses, (with an
emphasis on the developments round the Indian Ocean). He applies his analysis also
to the cultural and religious fields. Bayly, C. A. (2002). 'Archaic' and 'modern'
globalization in the Eurasian and African arena. c. 1750-1850. Globalization in world
history. A. G. Hopkins. London, Pimlico: 46-73, Bayly, C. A. (2004). The Birth of the
Modern World. Global Connections and Comparisons. Oxford, Blackwell
Publishing.In a recent article on the role of athletes and performers as the cultural
agents of a’globalising roman empire’ I have used the term ‘ancient globalisation’,
as ‘Archaic’ would be confusing. van Nijf, O. M. (2006). Global players: Athletes and
performers in the Hellenistic and Roman World. Between Cult and Society. The
cosmopolitan centres of the ancient Mediterranean as setting for activities of
religious associations and religious communities (Special Issue of
Hephaistos,Kritische Zeitschrift zu Theorie und Praxis der Arcäologie und
angrenzender Gebiete). I. Nielsen. Hamburg, van Nijf, O. M. (2006). "‘Global players’:
Griekse atleten, artiesten en de ‘oikoumene’ in de Romeinse keizertijd." Leidschrift..
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In this paper I shall discuss the developments in rough chronological

order: focusing on four aspects of Roman presence:
1: I shall first discuss the settlement of individual Romans in the Greek
cities, with special attention for their participation in social and cultural
sides of Greek civic life
2: I shall then discuss on the basis of some politic-religious ritual
practices how the Greek cities responded by granting the Romans a
collective status, though which they were allowed to connect with the
kosmos of the later Greek polis
3: And finally I shall discuss how in the imperial period Romans were
getting fully enshrined in urban life, by organizing themselves in more
formally structured associations that seem to have acquired a quasi-
political status in the cities
4: in this form they appear to have served as cultural an political
brokers between the cities and rome.

There are two major omissions: I shall skip in this paper an important
phase: the troubles of the first century BCE and more in particular the ‘
Ephesian Vespers’ the massacres of the Mithridatic wars and their
aftermath. Nor shall I discus the Romans in Delos, which was not a
normal Greek city, and which I suspsect distr]ort the picture.
These I shall have leave to a different occasion, but I had to begin
somewhere.

Who were the Romaioi?

First the terminology: There has been some scholarly interest in the
fact that some texts that talk about Romans (Romaioi) and other about
Italians, but I don’t think that we need to worry too much about these
differences in terminology. First, because I think that terminological
precision was rarely a major concern in the world of ancient
associations, which is the vantage point from which I first addressed
these issues, But also because it has become clear that these subtle
differences were of little interest to the Greek cities, who would lump
all Italians and Romans together as Romaioi.
Moreover, after the Social Wars of the first century BC this distinction
would loose its force anyway.

Economic interests
Even though Roman foreign policy was not mercantilist in the sense
that it was shaped by the commercial interests; it is still obvious that
the presence of Romaioi was closely connected with the growth of
empire, even though it was more a case of trade following the flag, than
the other way around.
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Romaioi were active in a range of economic activities: they appeared as

shippers (naukleroi) traders (mercatores or negotiatores),2 but equally as
financiers and moneylenders (trapezitai). “In fact they seem to have
turned a hand to anything that could bring in a handsome profit, and
appear almost anywhere where reasonably ordered commercial
conditions could be found.”3
However, as all entrepreneurs in pre-industrial economies, they would
invest their money as soon as possible in the only stable source of
income, land. So quite a few Romaioi were in fact (colonial) landowners:
which is in fact proven in some inscriptions that list them explicitly as
landowners: romaioi engaiountes etc.

Romaioi were clearly among the main beneficiaries of the growing

empire, but they had an active function in this process as well. It is
probably redundant to add that the economic activities of these Romaioi
would have included tax farming: the Roman state practiced what we
now call “outsourcing” or “privatization”, by farming the provincial
taxes to companies of publicani, that were based in Rome, but with large
networks in the provinces.
In Greek cities you would, therefore, also encounter all kinds of Roman
publicani, ranging from high ranking negotiatores who had a stake in a
tax-farming company, their agents who negotiated with the authorities
of the Greek cities, as well as the more humble telonai, who were had
the job of actually extracting the money from the Greek cities, or from
traders and travellers who passed by the toll-stations along the borders
of city territories and tax regions.4 The reputation of these publicans for
rapacity and corruption is well-known, not to say notorious. But tax-
farmers and moneylenders may have colluded, and all negotiatores were
implicated in the exploitation of the Greek provinces. Together with
the Roman soldiers, such men would have represented to many, the
(ugly) face of Roman imperialism.

To the Greeks there may have been simply not too much difference, as
became in fact clear in the early first century BC. When Roman
negotiatores and publicani – the usual villains- were so closely associated,
that they were massacred together during one of the most terrible
events of the first Mithridatic War the so-called ‘Ephesian Vespers’ in
2
The term negotiator seems to have conveyed the idea of trade and commerce on a
wider scale, and may have given them an air of respectability
3
Errington, R. M. (1988). Aspects of Roman acculturation in the East under the
Republic. Alte geschichte und Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Festschrift für K. Christ zum
65. Geburtstag. P. K. a. V. Losemann. Darmstadt: 140-157., 143
4
See Van Nijf (Forthcoming) The social world of Roman Tax farmers.
OVN Staying Roman- Becoming Greek DRAFT VERSION 20-09-2009 5

the spring of 88 BC. The eighty thousand Romans or more that are
reputed that were massacred were surely not only tax farmers.

Although I shall not discuss these events, It is worth pointing out,

however, that the stories about the thousands of Roman victims of the
Mithridatic Wars prove at least that the Romans must have had a
sizeable presence in the Greek cities. It is a fact of Roman imperial
history, that many Romans had settled in the Greek cities, and that they
had a role to play there. Is it possible to come to a more positive
appreciation of the nature of their involvement in these communities?
It has been argued (by Ferrary among others) that it is very difficult to
appreciate the relationships between the Romaioi and the Greek city in
the Republican period, but it is worth making the attempt.5

Greek cities
Where do we find these Romans? It is clear that we should differentiate
between the different types of cities: the integration of the Romans did
not happen everywhere in the same pace or along the same lines. Jean
Louis Ferrary has recently argued that Roman business men would have
been particularly attracted to cities where Roman magistrates and pro-
magistrates were based.6 The absence of a system of international law
would have made it attractive for Roman traders to have easy access to
a Roman official with ‘imperium’ or ‘iuris dictio’, who could guarantee the
security of personnel and property, and intervene when transactions
went wrong. Roman traders will have sought protection one way or
another: protection of the law where available, but there is sufficient
evidence to proof that they will have resorted to exerting pressure and
bullying or buying their way around where necessary.
In these bigger centres, Romans may have been numerous enough to
form a kind of large expat-communities, but Romans were also to be
found – in smaller or larger numbers- in many different smaller cities.
We find evidence for the presence of associations and groups of Romaioi
in many cities, including as Pagai, Amorgos, Adramytteion, Priene,
Abydos, Ilion Erythrae and many others (but the number of cities in
which individual Romaioi are attested is many times greater), where
they will have had to accommodate themselves to their new
environment and way of life more or less on their own.
5
Ferrary, J.-L. (2001). Rome et la géographie de l'hellénisme: réflexions sur les
"hellènes" et "panhellènnes" dans les inscriptions d'époque romaine. The Greek
East in Roman context. Proceedings of a colloquium organised by the Finnish
Institute at Athens, May 21-and 22 , 1999. O. Salomies. Helsinki, Finnish Institute at
Athens: 19-36.
6
Ibid.
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What was the place in the cities of these settlers? Were they all (hated?)
outsiders, or do we find evidence of their integration within the kosmos
of the polis?

Romans and other foreigners

To appreciate this we need to know how Greek cities normally coped
with foreigners. Foreign traders had existed before, of course: the major
Greek harbours had always hosted larger or smaller groups of
foreigners, who often banded together, and developed a collective
identity on the joint basis of origin, shared cult or occupation. Such
groups were sometimes allowed privileges: temples, headquarters and
burial places. In some cases they were also allowed to express their
own ethnic and religious identity collectively in public ritual.

In most cases this was a matter of toleration than of integration,

however: even though the Thracian Bendis worshippers of Athens seem
have been connected to aspects of city life, these men and their
associations remained ultimately outsiders, marginal to the concerns of
the Greek city:

So, what happened when Roman xenoi began to establish themselves in

the Greek cities? As I said, much of the scholarly interest in these
Romans has focused on the tensions that they caused. However, in an
interesting article of 1988, Robert Malcolm Errington has taken a
different perspective: he investigated aspects of Roman acculturation in
the East, focusing on the (mainly epigraphic) evidence for Roman
settlers and traders.7 Errington shows that there is evidence that -right
from the start- Romans were actively participating in many aspects of
the life of the city. There is particularly good epigraphic evidence for
the integration of Romans in the world of the gymnasia and festivals.

Romans as athletes and ephebes

We are all aware of the crucial role of athletic training in the
gymnasium and athletic competition in the religious festivals for the
creation of Greek identity at a personal level, and at the level of cities.8
Moreover, these manifestations of Greek culture underwent an
7
Errington, R. M. (1988). Aspects of Roman acculturation in the East under the
Republic. Alte geschichte und Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Festschrift für K. Christ zum
65. Geburtstag. P. K. a. V. Losemann. Darmstadt: 140-157..
8
I have discussed this question i.a in: van Nijf, O. (1999). "Athletics, festivals and
Greek identity in the Roman East." Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological
Society 45: 175-200.
OVN Staying Roman- Becoming Greek DRAFT VERSION 20-09-2009 7

explosive growth precisely in the Hellenistic period: festivals were

founded in increasing numbers and the gymnasia of this period
developed into monumental masterpieces that started to play a crucial
role - as a second agora it has been said- in the social, cultural and
political life of the cities.

From the third century BCE we see individual Romaioi are as

participants in and, not infrequently, as victors of athletic competitions
throughout Greece. In fact the first attested Roman victories at
traditional Greek Games go back to the end of 3rd century, when Roman
athletes took part in (and won) the great Panhellenic Games of the
Isthmia of 228. Cassius Dio reports the name of the victor as ‘Plautus’,
and many modern historians may have their suspicions about his
identity. Yet, Roman participation in Greek games seems plausible
enough.

In subsequent years Romaioi appear as frequent players at a growing

number of lesser games and festivals as well. From the mid 2nd century
this became quite common: in 142 BC a long list of victors at the
Athenian Theseia list a Roman as the victor of the hoplomachia (armed
fight);9 around the same time we find that in Chalkis in one single year
no less than 5 Romans won at the local Herakleia. And there are many
other examples: a list of victors of the Romaia of Xanthos includes a
Roman victor in the major horse race: ‘Caius Octavius Pollio, who even
had himself announced as a Telmessian’.10
The success of these festivals, and the increasing participation and
athletic successes of Romans in them, are indeed an indication of the
successful integration of Romans in Greek cities and certainly in their
gymnasia. For, in order to succeed in these contests with the best full-
time Greek athletes, the Romaioi must have been frequenting the Greek
gymnasia for some time.

9
IG II.2, 960
10
Robert, L. (1978). "Catalogue agonistique des Rômaia de Xanthos." Revue
Archéologique: 277-290 [= OMS VII, no 176].. - Incidentally, this texts shows that
many of these games had their part to play in the symbolic integration of Greek
cities in the Roman imperial system. From the third onwards we also find games in
traditional Greek style that were celebrated in honour of Rome – the Romaia- that
were celebrated separately or joined with existing festivals, as for example in
Xanthos where the Koinon (league) of the Lycian cities organised ‘Roman Games.’ I
shall discuss this feature in more detail in a forthcoming paper ‘ Sporting for Rome:
Greek athletic festivans in the servie of the cult of Rome and the Emperors.’
OVN Staying Roman- Becoming Greek DRAFT VERSION 20-09-2009 8

Errington identifies in fact quite a number of Romans among the

ephebes 11who trained in the gymnasia, that were gradually opening up
to foreigners: from big centres like Athens and Pergamon to smaller
ports as Naxos and Larissa.

But their acculturation went beyond the mere adoption of Greek

physical culture: it must rank as a sign of the thorough cultural
integration of Roman expats, that they were also able to win in literary
contests as well: A Quintus Ocrius Quinti Filius is on record as the victor
in a competition for the Egkomion logikon (contest in laudatory rhetoric)
at Tanagra in Boeotia, and a man called Publius Romaios won the
second prize in the dramatic competition of the Sarapieia in the same
place at the turn of the second to first century BCE.
Roman traders may have had a modest social status in their home
country, but whatever their status in Italy, in the East young Romans
were able join the jeunesse dorée of the Greek cities who spent their time
in the gymnasia and share in their athletic and intellectual pursuits.
This can only have promoted their successful integration into their host
communities. Membership of the ephebeia would even open up the
road to local citizenship - whatever the Roman rules about the
incompatibility between roman and local citiznship
Romans as benefactors
Errington also mentions as another symptom of their integration the
willingness of some Romaioi to invest in their host communities: from
the third century Roman benefactors we find large numbers of
monumental inscriptions that rewarded Roman benefactors for their
generosity with proxenia (appointment as an official ‘friend of the city’
i. a kind of honorary consul), proedria (the right to reserved seats in the
front rows at games) ateleia (exemption from import/export duties),
ges enktesis (the right to own property)– in sum by all the traditional
Greek rewards for public generosity. Errington suggests that this
implies a ‘basic identity of interest between the Greek communities and
the Roman traders’, but I am less optimistic about this identity of
interest and the civic spirit of these benefactors and magistrates.

This type of honorific inscriptions was often set up for individuals who
were not so much members of the community, but outsiders who
somehow towered over the cities, like kings, military commanders, and
magnates. Many of the inscriptions were actually set up for Roman

11
NB the ephebeia was of course an entry into citizenship. Cf Habicht
OVN Staying Roman- Becoming Greek DRAFT VERSION 20-09-2009 9

bankers and moneylenders. The tone of the honorific inscriptions set up

for them suggest that rather than as local men, such men were seen as
powerful outsiders who held the cities more or less in their grip.

An example of this is an honorific text for the Cloatii Marcus and

Nemerius who were proclaimed proxenoi and euergetai by the city of
Gytheion on account of their devotion and honourable ambition
towards the city, but who also appear to have been the cities main
creditors.12

“ Since Numerius and Marcus Cloatius, sons of Numerius Romans

proxenoi and benefactors of our city, from the beginning have
continued to act justly both towards our polis and, privately towards
those of the citizens who approached them (with a request) , never
lacking in zeal and honourable ambition, because of which the city
gratefully made public mention and voted suitable honours for them, in
the year of Lachares’ magistracy when they were negotating our release
from the obligations of the first loan; and in the year of Phleinos’
magistracy, when concerning the second loan of 3965 drachmas, which
the city had borrowed in the year of Damarmanos’ magistracy, they
accepted the people of Athens, as arbitratror in the time of Marcilius
and then after being implored by the citizens they permitted the
payment of what the citizens persuaded them … etc…”

Euergetism, like patronage, is often a myth used to dress up

fundamentally skewed relationships. We have no way of telling how
often a honorific monument was used to present a respectable façade to
a relationship that turned around extortion and fear.
I conclude therefore, that these instances do not tell us much about the
integration of the Romans in these cities.

Collective presence of Romans in civic festivals:

My discussion has focused so far mainly on the evidence for individual
Romaioi, who were often identified on the basis of their names. Such
men may have been integrated in their cities, but in the end they were
(albeit important, wealthy or powerful) treated not fundamentally
differently from other (wealthy) foreigners.

What I want to discuss now, however, is evidence for collective action,

or rather for a collective presence of Romans as a recognizable group
with a special status in the city. To find out more about this, we can

12
IG 5.2, 1146.
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investigate the evidence for the rich ritual life of the post-classical
Greek cities. Civic rituals and ceremonies, and in particular sacrificial
banquets and processions are a particularly good place to look as these
often serve as a dramatic representation of the social and political order
in the city. Moreover, regulations about and records of ritual activities
often list the participants, and can serve as a kind of ‘Who is who?’ in
the Hellenistic city.

In this context I can only discuss to the public banquets, that were
organized by priests, magistrates or benefactors in the Greek cities of
the Hellenistic period. Banquets (and especially sacrificial banquets)
had always been a major event in Greek cities. The distribution of
sacrificial meat, which is at the core of banquets, had always been one
an important collective activity. In the words of Pauline Schmitt-Pantel
who has studied public commensality in the Greek city, “participation
in the civic sacrifices and the civic banquets is of the same nature as
integration into the civic group.”
Rules about participation to Greek civic banquets had always been
strict. In the third part of her study Schmitt-Pantel investigates the
development of public commensality in the Hellenistic period. She
shows how the organization of public banquets responded to, and was a
factor in, the structural transformation of Greek polis society in this
period. Just as Greek cities were gradually taking on a more
cosmopolitan character there was also ‘A gradual widening of the
groups that were entitled to participate, and an increasing participation
of strangers in these quintessential civic rituals’.13

From the second century BC onwards we find that Roman citizens got
invited to these banquets, as a separately mentioned category. The
earliest examples are found in Eretria (IG 12.9, 234)14 and Aigiale on
Amorgos (IG 12, 7, 515)15, but they are also found in Priene, Pergamon,

13
“ une ouverture plus grande du groupe des ayants droit et la participations
fréquente des étrangers, qu’ils soient domiciliés dans la cités ou de passage.” SP 490
14
“…at the sacred gathering of the Artemisia he met the expenses of the unguents
out of his own pocket; accepting this expense not only for the citizens but for the
rest of those who attended the gathering and shared common privileges, and, in
undertaking the sacrifice to Hermes, he invited by public proclamation both the
citizens and those Romans who were resident, and on the fourth day he banqueted
those who shared the common privileges and on the fifth others of the citizens and
many of the strangers…”
15
... he provided a deipnon (meal) to all citizen who happened to be in Aigiale and
the residents and the foreigners and those of the Romans who happened to be
present and their sons (or wives)…
OVN Staying Roman- Becoming Greek DRAFT VERSION 20-09-2009 11

Kyme, Eresos (Lesbos), et Pagai (Megaris). What is important to me here

is that in these case the Roman were not singled out individually, as
before, but listed collectively as hoi Romaioi (The Romans).
This is clearly an indication that they had developed a corporate status,
a collective identity that was now being recognised by the organisers of
the civic banquets.
It is interesting to note the difference with the other foreigners, who
were normally simply referred to collectively as xenoi (foreigners), but
who were rarely identified by their individual place of origin. This lifted
the Romans to a level somewhat between foreigners and citizens. Yet, a
certain ambiguity remained: the Romaioi were invited as a recogniseable
group, above other foreigners, but in the end, they remained -and were
listed as- foreigners, outsiders to the city.

There are some caveats here: this may not have happened everywhere
at the same rate, and the inclusion of the Romans may at times have
been a personal choice of the benefactor who paid for the banquets.
This was so in the case of Kritolaos, the benefactor from Aigiale who
was one of the first to invite the Romans (2BC), but this appears to have
been still the case at the end of the first century BC when the
benefactor Kleanax invited Romans to a number of banquets in Kyme
(SEG 32, 1243)16.

So, we find an growing number of texts that refer to the Romans as a

group, as a collective with a certain status in the city. The Romans were
certainly visible collectively: they had their own ‘associations’, and they
could be invited collectively to take part in festivals and ritual occasions
that were organised in the polis.
They were a specially recognised group of foreigners, that could occupy
a position between citizens and other foreigners. But Roman traders,
and even Roman residents, were still relatively marginal to the Greek
cities. They lived in the cities, but they were not a fully integral part of
the cities.

Yet, an important step had been made which had repercussion

throughout the Greek world. Epigraphic material from Delos illustrates
this from an other perspective: early Delian inscriptions often refer to
Athenians, Roman and other xenoi (foreigners), but from the first

16
“... As the first and only person he hosted in the prytaneion (town hall) the
citizens and the Romans and the foreigners and after a proclamation he gave a
treat in the market place to the Hellenes by Phyle (district) and to the Romans, and
the residents and the foreigners …”
OVN Staying Roman- Becoming Greek DRAFT VERSION 20-09-2009 12

century inscriptions on the island start refer to Athenians, Romans and

other Greeks, which was clearly a major upgrade in the status of the
Romans - from a Greek perspective. A process of adaptation and
acculturation had apparently been set into motion, that would continue
well into the Imperial period.

Getting organised: Romans in Greek cities of the Principate

So far I have been discussing the Romaioi of the Hellenistic (or
Republican) era, but now I shall discuss the developments in the
imperial period - with a focus more on Asia Minor than on Greece. At
the end of the first century BC the epigraphical record of Roman traders
and settlers shows two fundamental changes. First a quantitative
change: There is a sharp increase in the number of texts that refer to
associations of Romans. In Asia Minor alone we know about 20
inscriptions from the Republican period, but in the first centuries AD
their number quadruples to about 80. I haven’t done the numbers yet
for all the areas, but it is my impression that they rose as well in Greece
and the islands.

But a more important development is qualitative. During the late

Hellenistic period Romaioi had appeared largely in the inscriptions that
were set up by others, by natives of the Greek cities in which they were
mentioned as guests to public banquets and other festivities, as a
privileged category, as benefactors or as victors in games. But from the
late first century onwards the situation seems to be reversed. Romans
start to appear in their own right, as the collective authors of public
inscriptions in the Greek cities, thereby using monumental language
actively to claim a place in the civic world. My interest here, therefore,
is not so much to explain this rise, but rather to draw attention to the
way the Romans represented themselves and to the implication of this
self-fashioning for their role in the civic communities.

It is important to emphasise that these texts were set up by Romans as a

group, as a community. They present themselves as a clearly
demarcated group with a corporate identity, and capable of taking
collective action. They behave like civic bodies: They have magistrates,
and make decisions, pass decrees, erect buildings and set up their own
inscribed monuments in public space; in every respect they mimick the
established civic institutions. In my book I dubbed this development,
that we also find with other types of associations, ‘ordo-making.’ In
some cases they even started to behave like proper cities (or like other
building blocks of empire such as provincial koina, and associations of
OVN Staying Roman- Becoming Greek DRAFT VERSION 20-09-2009 13

performers17) by sending out envoys especially to Rome-just as though

they were cities themselves.

In short the epigraphic record suggest that the Romans started to

organise themselves formally and that they began to play a more active
role in the public sphere of their host communities.

The status of Romaioi: conventus?

There has been some interest in the exact legal status of the
organizations of Romans in Greek cities. Unfortunately it is not always
easy to understand the exact nature of the relationship between these
associations and the cities. Traditionally it has been suggested – by
Kornemann and Schulten- that they operated in the form of a conventus
– which was supposedly a formal body instituted in each city by the
Roman state under a kind of state appointed direction: curatores,
(Kornemann). There are some texts that support this view, such as an
inscriptions from Hierapolis in Phrygia (Judeich 32) where the Romans
honour a conventarch.
“The most shining boule (council) and the most shining demos ( people)
of Hierapolis and the gerousia (council of elders) and the synedrion of
the Romaioi and the neoi (young men) and the associations have
repeatedly honoured Ageleius Apollonides from Ania, a man who
belonged to (a family of) excellent councillors, who was a strategos of
the city and agoranomos (market supervisor) and dekaprotos (one of
the ten rich men who were responsible for the payment of central
taxes) and 'conventarch' (Greek for official responsible for the
conventus) of the Romans, and responsible for the oil distributions, and
formerly auditor, and supervisor of public building, who had shown
himself most useful on matters to do with the emperor (?)”

and from Thyateira in Lydia (TAM 5.2, 1002)

“The leather workers honour T. Flavius Alexander of the tribus Quirina

son of Metrophanes, having been agoranomos for 6 months with vim
and vigour, and with many expenses, having been curator of the Roman
conventus, having been 3 times ambassador to the emperor in Rome,

17
For an interpretation of associations of athletes and perfoprmers as quasi agents
in the servie of Rome see my: van Nijf, O. M. (2006). Global players: Athletes and
performers in the Hellenistic and Roman World. Between Cult and Society. The
cosmopolitan centres of the ancient Mediterranean as setting for activities of
religious associations and religious communities (Special Issue of
Hephaistos,Kritische Zeitschrift zu Theorie und Praxis der Arcäologie und
angrenzender Gebiete). I. Nielsen. Hamburg..
OVN Staying Roman- Becoming Greek DRAFT VERSION 20-09-2009 14

and having succeeded in his missions concerning large sums of money,

having been priest of Artemis at his own expense, piously and
generously, and who has dedicated... on behalf of Flavia Alexandra and
Flavia Glycinna his daughters.”

But there are some problems: the term conventus for a group of traders
is awkward, as these conventus would have to have been distinguished
from the juridical conventus, which had a precise and recogniseable
meaning of court districts, as well as the court assemblies that were
held there on fixed days with the governor presiding. Moreover, it is
not clear to that the term conventus of traders was universally adopted-
and even less that it was promoted by the Roman state. This view was,
therefore, discredited, i.a. by Hatzfeld, but in an unpublished Leiden
MA thesis, Hermann Roozenbeek has argued that we need to reconsider
our views, as these groups of Roman residents and traders must have
had a kind of more formal status. He suggests that these conventus were
linked to the cities in a kind of sympoliteia (joined citizenship), which
would have given them a separate status and a close link to the city at
the same time: again an expression that is found in the epigraphical
record.

sympoliteia (IGR 3, 294)

“ [Ἰσα]υρέων ἡ βούλη καῖ ὅ δῆμος οἵ τε συμπολιτευομένοι Ῥωμαῖοι
The Boule and the Demos of the Isaurians and the Romans who are in
joined citizenship with us (have decided etc)”

However, I am not sure that this solution can be employed in all cases.
Surely not all Romans would have established a settlement that could
be described in terms of sympoliteia. In some cases groups of Romans
seem to have an identity that exceeded the limits of an individual city:
various inscriptions refer to the Romans that were active in a region or
an entire province, which suggests that these associations could have a
‘translocal’ character, which would preclude any idea of sympoliteia.
We find, for example: associations of romaioi
“ Οἱ κατὰ τῆς Ἀσίας πραγματευόμενοι Ῥωμαῖοι: (IEphesos 5, 1517)
The Roman businessmen throughout Asia”
And In Smyrna (IK 24.1, 642)
“ Οἱ ἐπὶ ἐπὶ τῆς Ἀσίας πραγματευόμενοι Ῥωμαῖοι.
The Roman businessmen in Asia”

For the purpose of this paper I suggest that we leave this matter open: I
for one am ready to accept that associations of Romans often enjoyed a
permanent and fixed status in the cities, but that the precise legal
OVN Staying Roman- Becoming Greek DRAFT VERSION 20-09-2009 15

installation of such groups could differ from case to case, and that it
may have been a matter of local conditions and local preferences.

Civic identity
More important than their legal status is to see what these Romans
were actually doing in the city, and how they expressed their role in
what I have called ‘the civic world’. It is quite obvious that these
Romans often expressed a close tie, if not their identity, with the Greek
cities in which they were active. Associations of Roman negotiatores
often had titles that clearly indicated their belonging to a particular
city
They could be known as
- “Οἱ τε παρ᾽αὐτοῖς ὄντες Ῥωμαῖοι (Chios 5-14 AD SEG 22, 507)
The Romans who are with them”
- “[οἱ κατοικοῦντες ἐν] Ἰλίῳ Ῥωμαίοι.) (Ilion IK 3, 230)
The Romans who are living in Ilion”
- τοῖς πραγματευομένοις παρ' ἡμῖν Ῥωμαίοις in Assos (IK 4, 26)
The Romans who do business amongst us
- οἱ πραγματευόμενοι ἐν τῇ πόλει Ῥωμαῖοι (Kyzikos, SEG 28, 953)
The Romans who do business in the city
- Οι εν Eφέσῳ πραγματευόμενοι ἔμποροι Iταλικοι or Ῥωμαῖοι
(Ephesos, IEphesos 3, 800) The Roman (or Italian) traders who do
business in Ephesos.
- Oἱ ἐν Tράλλεσι κατοικοῦντες ρωμαῖοι, in Tralleis, ITralleis, 77 The
Romans who live in Tralleis
- οἱ Ῥωμαῖοι οἱ ἐν Ἰασωι πραγματευόμενοι IIasos 90 The Romans who
do business in Iasos

And such examples could easily be multiplied. Another perhaps

stronger argument for their increasing identification with the interests
of the city – and hence of their integration into the city- is to be found
on honorific monuments and dedications that were set up by the
Romans for local priests, magistrates and benefactors of the city as a
whole.
The first instances of this identification are to be found on funerary
monuments that simply represented side by side the honorific crowns
that the deceased had received from the city and from groups such as
the Romans
Erythrae 2, 405:
“in corona: dèmos
[ ---- son of Krateas , χρῆστε χαῖρε (greetings – good man)
in corona Romans”
OVN Staying Roman- Becoming Greek DRAFT VERSION 20-09-2009 16

But later texts were much more detailed. When we consider the
aforementioned inscriptions from Hierapolis and Thyateira we see
Romans appearing as a civic institution, passing its own honorific
decrees for important citizens. Such inscriptions highlighted the
essential solidarity of the Romaioi with the city, and by adopting the
discourse of public praise the Romaioi now showed that they had
effectively internalised the core values of their host communities.
Initially the Roman associations acted still alone, but it became
increasingly common that Romaioi appeared as the (joint) authors of
inscriptions and even decrees, alongside cities, or alongside political
institutions of cities, suggesting that they were fully integrated in the
decision making process. This phenomenon, which we encounter also in
the case of artisanal collegia associated the Romans even closer to the
core interests of the city in which they were active.
A text from Apameia in Phrygia shows that the Romans were even
allowed to take part in a pandemos ekklesia – a general assembly- which
a clear sign of a near full social and political integration in the city.
IGR 4 791; formal status

“The boule and the demos and the resident Romans, at a plenary
meeting of the assembly, honour Publius Manneius Ruso, son of
Publius, of the tribe Romilia, a good and high-minded man for the
benefactions of his ancestors and his own comparable benefactions
towards the fatherland. He frequently nourished the city in difficult
circumstances and he led embassies to the emperors concerning many
useful matters, and he obtained generosities from the imperial priests,
and he was a friend of the people at every occasion and he increased the
income of the people. The statue was set up by the tradesmen (ergastai)
of the Thermaia Plateia. Eumenes son of Dionysios and Iulius son of
Doubassion were responsible. In accordance with a decree of the city.”

These examples show, I think that full integration into the city, that ‘an
identity of interest’ was not, as Errington suggested achieved, when
Romans started to appear as the recipients of civic honour, but rather
when they start to side with the cities and make an appearance as the
authors of inscriptions and honorific monuments for civic benefactors.

Romaioi as cultural and political brokers

Having said that, it want to emphasise that this was not simply a case of
Romans going native, of Romans becoming Greek as it were, gradually
shedding their Roman character and loosening their links with Rome.
On the contrary: Romanness was the basis of their name and of the
OVN Staying Roman- Becoming Greek DRAFT VERSION 20-09-2009 17

identity of their organization, and it was exactly in becoming Greek and

simultaneously maintaining links with Rome that they found their
raison d’être.
In this final part I want to discuss the evidence that the Romans started
to play an ideologically significant’ role as agents in the representation
of the emperor and of imperial power in the cities of the Greek
provinces.
It is quite obvious that the representation of these associations of
Romaioi was often closely bound up with the representation of Rome
itself an imperial power.
About half the number of inscriptions that were set up by associations
of Romans in Asia Minor (that is to say 40 out of 80) - were used to
convey loyalty to the city of Rome and most of all to the emperors. (also
in Greece most of the inscriptions set up by the Romaioi were in one
way or another declarations of loyalty).

Dedications
- IK 4. 240 : Thea Rome, benefactress of the world
- IK 4, 13: Gaius Caesar hègemon of the neotes (princeps juventutis)by the
dèmos and the Roman traders
- IK4, 19 to Livia Hera
- IEphesos 2, 409 To Claudius
- IGR 4, 684 To Domitian and the Demos Romaiôn

Moreover many other inscriptions that were not used to explicitlly for
the emperor can still be read as an expression of loyalty with Rome:

Honours for Roman (pro)magistrates and imperial priests

And a striking number was involved or at leat concerned with the

sending of ambassies to Rome, or with praising past ambassadors.

Mantineia

the city of the Antogoneans and the Roman businessmen there honour
Epigone, their benefactress
having paid for a variety of benefactions to the polis he went beyond
the boundaries of Hellas and sailed until the signet ring of the Augustus,
over the Adriatic -a sea that even the coastal residents hesitate to sail
only once, he the landlubber despesed by sailing it a second time

Maroneia
OVN Staying Roman- Becoming Greek DRAFT VERSION 20-09-2009 18

Only a few years ago Kevin Clinton published an inscription that

illustrates this interest in a spectacular fashion. I am talking of course
about the decree from Maroneia on the privileges the city wanted
reconfirmed under Claudius. This is a decree by Boule and demos, in
praise for a successful embassy to the emperor Claudius (who is hailed
as ‘the most conspicuous god of the universe and creator of new
belssings for all men’) as well s mking provisions for future embassies to
deal with new threats to the city’s freedom and privileges.
It is striking that this degree was passed on a gnome (resolution) of a
selection of civic groups:

“Resolution of the bouleutai and priests and the magistrates and the
Romans resident in the city and all other citizens”

This text shows how the roman residents - as the co sponsors of the
decree- were playing a major part in organising and regulating the
relations between the city and the emperor.

Moreover, the texts also shows how the mention of the Romans in the
series of decision making bodies contributed to a new representation of
local society- not as an isonomic community- but as a hierarchy of
status groups that were linked symbolically and effectively to the
imperial centre:
other examples of this practice (alo involving romans) are not difficult
to find: the text from Apamaiea in Phrygia that I mentioned earlier
(where the Romans took part in a pandemos ekklesia) was another. But
the most spectacular example of this practice is found in a long
inscription of Assos that I shall quote in full:18

IK 4.26
“In the consulship of Gnaeus Acerronius Proculus and Gaius Pontius
Petronius Nigrinus. The Assians on motion of the people.
Whereas the rule of Gaius Caesar Germanicus Augustus, hoped and
prayed for by all men, has been proclaimed and the world has found
unended joy and every city and every people has been eager for the
sight of the god since the happiest age for mankind has now begun, it
was decreed by the council and the Roman businessmen among us and
the people of Assos to appoint an embassy chosen from the foremost

18
IK 4. 26. Other texts that show the involvement of the Roman communities in such
declarations of loyalty, include a text of the year 3BC that records the oath of
loyalty sworn to Augustus by the inhabitants of Paphlagonia. The Romans from
Assos were clearly not exceptional.
OVN Staying Roman- Becoming Greek DRAFT VERSION 20-09-2009 19

most distinguished Romans and Greeks to seek an audience and

congratulate him, and beg him to remember the city with solicitude, as
he personally promised when together with his father Germanicus he
first set foot in our city's province.
Oath of the Assians:
We swear by Zeus the Savior and by the deified Caesar Augustus and by
the ancestral Holy Maiden, to be loyal to Caius Caesar Augustus and all
his house and to regard as friends whomever he chooses and as
enemies whomever he censures. If we remain faithful to our oath may it
go well with us; if we swear falsely the opposite.
The envoys proposed themselves voluntarily at their own expense
Caius Varius C.F. Voltinia Castus
Hermophanes son of Zoïlos
Ktêtos so. Pisistratos”

What we have here, is a decree of the city of Assos referring to a joint

decision of the city and the Romans to send envoys to Caligula on the
occasion of his elevation to the imperial purple. The envoys conveyed
the city’s congratulations, but also the text of a public oath of loyalty in
which the Romans joined in with the Greeks of Assos. ‘Joined in’ is
perhaps not the right expression as the Romaioi seem to have had a pole
position among the authors of the decree: as in the text from Akmoneia
they were mentioned after the boule but before the demos which clearly
shows that they had played an active -perhaps initiating- part in the
negotiations.

And, finally, the leading role of associations of Romans in establishing

links with rome is also in evidence on a long inscriptions from
Klaudioneapolis in Paphlagonia. When in about 5 BCE the province
Paphlagonia was created, all inhabitants took an oath of loyalty to
Augustus and his descendants:19

IGR ??Gangra

“.. on the day before the Nones of march (6 March) in Gangra, in

camp(or in the agora) , the oath completed by the inhabitants of
Paphlagonia and the Romans who do business among them: "I swear by
Zeus, eart, Sun, all the godsand goddesses and Augustus himself that I
will be favourably disposed toward Caesar Augustus and his children

19
IGR ?? cf Herrmann, Peter. 1968. Der römische Kaisereid. Untersuchungen zu
seiner Herkunft und Entwicklung. Hypomnemata; untersuchungen zur Antike und
zu ihrem Nachleben, Heft 20. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck u. Ruprecht.
OVN Staying Roman- Becoming Greek DRAFT VERSION 20-09-2009 20

and descendants all the time of my life in word and deed and thought ....
etc.
In the same words was this oatch sworn by all the inhabitants of the
land in the temples of Augustus throughout the districts of the
province, by the altars of Augustus. And likewise the Phazimomians
living in what is now called Neapolis swore the oath, all of them, in the
temple of Augustus by the altar of Augustus”

Again we see that the Romans took a prominent part in this highly
charged occasion.

It would appear then that the one of the functions of these associations
of Romans in the civic world of the Greek city was somehow to monitor
or channel the symbolic exchanges between the Greek cities and the
imperial center. It is not possible to establish whether in these cases the
Romans took the initiative, or whether they merely responded to local
demands or pressures, but that may be besides the point. One way or
another, the associations of Romans in Greek cities had an important
part to play as a exemplry trait d’union, as the political and cultural
brokers in a globalising Roman empire.

Conclusion and envoy

I have presented a fairly rough sketch of the changing nature of Roman
presence in the Greek city in a period of a crucial transformation of the
Imperium Romanum in the East. I have discussed how at the early
stages Roman negotiatores settled in Greek cities in the slipstream of
Roman diplomatic moves and of the army. Initially they seem to have
settled as individual expats, who show considerable sign of adaptation
and acculturation to their new environments. I have shown how the
Greek cities responded, granting these newcomers a kind of collective
status, that found expression i.a. in their collective participation in
growing numbers of community rituals, and in particular public
banquets, with which the cities celebrated their collective identity. And
I have argued how in the imperial period Roman identity formed the
basis of increasingly formally structured associations that seem to have
acquired a fixed place in the social and political hierarchy of the city. In
this context it turned out that the association of Romans began to play
the role as a kind of symbolic or ideological intermediaries. They had a
key role in the spread of the imperial cult and in the representation of
Roman imperial power in the city.

There is one final stage of this history that I have not discussed as yet:
how did it finish? When I started my research for this paper. I was
OVN Staying Roman- Becoming Greek DRAFT VERSION 20-09-2009 21

mainly interested in the role of the formal associations of Romans in

Greek cities, and that story is fairly straightforward. The associations of
Romans are widely attested in the first two centuries AD, but when the
Constitutio Antoniniana extends Roman citizenship to all the free
inhabitants there is no need for clubs of Roman citizens - and they
disappear from the record: after 212 there are no associations of
Romaioi attested - as every Greek was now a Roman.
But when we think of Roman identity, the story does not end, quite yet.
The history of the Greek city of the imperial period, which coincides
with the cultural movement that we call the Second Sophistic. This is
was a Greek cultural phenomenon of course, that affected elite culture
and civic identity to a high degree. But it can also be seen to make room
for a specifically Greek interpretation of Roman identity. Throughout
the Greek East, Greek culture was used to give expression to a personal
and political identity that was both Greek and Roman, or even primarily
Roman.20 I am cutting corners here, and will probablt seem to deril to
many of you, but this development culminates in the well-known
phenomenon that the Greeks of the Byzantine empire were able to
present themselves as the Romaioi - the true and only Romans. This
Greek notion of Roman-ness - Romaiosyne- remained relevant in the
Greek world well into the twentieth century, but that is another story.

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20
I argue this more fully in a forthcoming paper.
OVN Staying Roman- Becoming Greek DRAFT VERSION 20-09-2009 22

van Nijf, O. (1999). "Athletics, festivals and Greek identity in the Roman
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van Nijf, O. M. (2006). Global players: Athletes and performers in the
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cosmopolitan centres of the ancient Mediterranean as setting for
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Praxis der Arcäologie und angrenzender Gebiete). I. Nielsen.
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van Nijf, O. M. (2006). "‘Global players’: Griekse atleten, artiesten en de
‘oikoumene’ in de Romeinse keizertijd." Leidschrift.