A Dividing Sea The Adriatic World from the Fourth to the First Centuries BC By Keith Robert Fairbank, Jr. B.A. Brigham Young University, 2010 M.A. Brigham Young University, 2012 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Program in Ancient History at Brown University PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND MAY 2018 © Copyright 2018 by Keith R. Fairbank, Jr. This dissertation by Keith R. Fairbank, Jr. is accepted in its present form by the Program in Ancient History as satisfying the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Date _______________ ____________________________________ Graham Oliver, Advisor Recommended to the Graduate Council Date _______________ ____________________________________ Peter van Dommelen, Reader Date _______________ ____________________________________ Lisa Mignone, Reader Approved by the Graduate Council Date _______________ ____________________________________ Andrew G. Campbell, Dean of the Graduate School iii CURRICULUM VITAE Keith Robert Fairbank, Jr. hails from the great states of New York and Montana. He grew up feeding cattle under the Big Sky, serving as senior class president and continuing on to Brigham Young University in Utah for his BA in Humanities and Classics (2010). Keith worked as a volunteer missionary for two years in Brazil, where he learned Portuguese (2004–2006). Keith furthered his education at Brigham Young University, earning an MA in Classics (2012). While there he developed a curriculum for accelerated first year Latin focused on competency- based learning. He matriculated at Brown University in fall 2012 in the Program in Ancient History. While at Brown, Keith published an appendix in The Landmark Caesar. He also co- directed a Mellon Graduate Student Workshop on colonial entanglements. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am thankful for the many people whose generosity has made this dissertation possible. First and foremost, many thanks to Graham Oliver who has patiently midwifed my ideas about the Adriatic from their beginnings in Ken Sacks’ seminar (to whom I am also indebted) through many conversations and countless revisions and in the end, I hope, taught me to think like an ancient historian. I am especially grateful for his example as a mentor and hope to someday be as good a model for my own students. I thank Lisa Mignone for her counsel and guidance early in my graduate career and many talks about Roman history. I also thank Peter van Dommelen for his support of this project and for stimulating conversations about Italy and the Adriatic. I have found at Brown University a wonderful and supportive community. I express thanks to my colleagues, especially those who joined the Mellon Workshop and improved with their comments several earlier versions of these ideas: Dominic Machado, Catie Steidl, Luther Karper, Sam Caldis, Sam Butler, and Marley-Vincent Lindsey. I am particularly thankful for the support and generosity of Kurt Raaflaub, who has gone far out of his way to take a hand in my education and career. I am also very thankful for the sustaining support I received from friends and colleagues in my ecclesiastical responsibilities, whose willingness to volunteer their time and energy at critical moments these past years have made this work possible, especially Brian Croxall, Jeremy Walker, Jared and Courtenay Ellison, Terik Daly, Blake Barker, Walt Rehon, and Sarah Maitland. My family has had an important impact on my life and this project. I am grateful to my parents and siblings for their support and encouragement at all stages of my education. My father, Keith, has shown consistent interest in my work and pushed me to work hard. My mother, v Jean, has welcomed my family into her home when I needed a week free of distractions. I am grateful for Catherine and Joe, who have provided many needed distractions and welcome commiseration. I am especially thankful for my sisters-in-law who have spent months living with us and helping us juggle the many demands on our time: Miriam and Sarah Bennett. But above all, I thank my wife, Rebecca, and our three little girls, Rachel, Molly, and Mathilde. Rebecca has been my sounding board from day one and helped me to think through all of the problems in this project. She has indefatigably juggled all the challenges of a young family and our many assignments with grace. I have immensely enjoyed leaving my office each night to read to my girls. May they never grow out of it. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS SIGNATURE PAGE iii CURRICULUM VITAE iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS v TABLE OF CONTENTS vii LIST OF FIGURES ix MAP OF ADRIATIC PORTS 1 INTRODUCTION 2 Connected Ecologies 4 Why the Adriatic? 8 Imaginary Adriatics 13 Conclusion 15 Chapter Descriptions 16 CHAPTER 1: DEFINING THE ADRIATIC 20 The Physical and Ecological Space 20 The Intellectual Space 38 The Historical Space 53 An Intimate Division 68 CHAPTER 2: IMPORTUOSA ITALIAE LITORA: MOVEMENT AND TRADERS 71 Trade Routes 77 Commodities and Markers of Trade 92 Fineware 92 Amphorae 109 Numismatics 122 Traders 127 Conclusion 132 CHAPTER 3: FROM PREDATION TO PROTECTION: FIGHTING MEN IN THE ADRIATIC WORLD 137 Adriatic Piracies 141 New Approaches 158 Application 170 CHAPTER 4: THE PEOPLE OF THE ADRIATIC: SETTLEMENT AND COLONIZATION 182 vii Colony or Settlement? Postcolonial Archaeology and History 186 A is for Ancona and Athens 195 Water and Land in the Adriatic Islands 210 Roman Land Use and Economic Exploitation 219 Conclusion 226 CHAPTER 5: IMPERIALISMS AND MARITIME POWER IN THE ADRIATIC WORLD 230 Imperialism and imperialisms 233 Syracusans 243 Athenians 249 Spartans and Epirotes (Defenders of Taras) 252 Illyrians 258 Macedonians 267 Romans 271 Conclusion 284 CONCLUSION 288 APPENDIX A: ADRIATIC COLONIES 295 BIBLIOGRAPHY 297 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 – Study of tracers in the Adriatic Sea 30 Figure 2 – Trade patterns in the Adriatic Sea 78 Figure 3 – Study of tracers in the Adriatic Sea 78 Figure 4 – Male and Female Daunian Stelae 80 Figure 5 – Sailing routes in the Adriatic after Kirigin et al. 83 Figure 6 – Surface currents in the Adriatic in Summer and Winter 84 Figure 7 – Adriatic sailing routes 86 Figure 8 – Sailing routes of the preroman period 90 Figure 9 – Distribution of Athenian red figure ceramics 6th-5th BC 93 Figure 10 – Route of Athenian merchants to the Po Delta 94 Figure 11 – Distribution of red figure pottery 96 Figure 12 – Athenian black (circles) and red (squares) figure pottery 97 Figure 13 – Distribution of Attic pottery in the classical period 99 Figure 14 – Sites related to black-glazed pottery 102 Figure 15 – Distribution of ESB A (white) and B (black) 104 Figure 16 – Hellenistic pottery in Liburnia 105 Figure 17 – Distribution of Hellenistic relief pottery 107 Figure 18 – Areas of amphora production 2nd-1st centuries BC 112 Figure 19 – Distribution of Greco-Italic amphora cargoes 4th-2nd centuries BC 118 Figure 20 – Distribution of Lamboglia 2 amphora cargoes 118 Figure 21 – Map of shipwrecks 120 Figure 22 – Coin hoards of mixed western Mediterranean bronzes 123 Figure 23 – Mint distribution of coins found at Issa 126 Figure 24 – Adriatic routes according to ancient geographers 134 Figure 25 – Maritime relations in the Strait of Otranto 135 Figure 26 – Plan of the colony of Potentia 199 Figure 27 – Plan of the colony of Pisaurum 200 Figure 28 – Land division on the Stari Grad and Jelsa plains 216 Figure 29 – Plan of the colony of Sena Gallica 223 ix 1 INTRODUCTION Fernand Braudel called the Adriatic Sea “perhaps the most unified of all the regions” of the Mediterranean.1 He argued this was largely due to its geography, especially the Strait of Otranto, which is so narrow as to make the Adriatic almost an inland sea. He further claimed that control of the Strait “amounted to control of the Adriatic,” especially at Corcyra (modern Corfu), which guards the entrance to the entire sea.2 While Venice controlled all of Braudel’s Adriatic in the age of Philip II of Spain (16th century AD), the geography had not changed since before the age of Philip II of Macedon (4th century BC). Yet despite geographic unity of space—and a high degree of maritime connectivity through trade and migration from at least the Bronze Age—no single power claimed control over the whole Adriatic until the Roman Empire, and then only briefly. In this way the ancient Adriatic presents something of a paradox: somehow the geography of the sea simultaneously facilitated maritime connectivity and hindered political control. In other words, it was highly permeable to people and goods but impervious to state power. And, as various east-west boundaries have run straight through the Adriatic in the last two millennia, most scholars have focused on the hindering, dividing aspects of the sea at the expense of its consistent connectivity. This study will attempt to examine the Adriatic as a geographic whole through both the maritime movements that continually connect it and the actions of powerful states trying to exploit that connectivity for political and economic control, with particular emphasis on the 4th to 1 Braudel (1972), 125. 2 Braudel (1972), 125-7. 2 the 1st centuries BC. Along the way, I argue that the Adriatic remains highly fragmented— balkanized—until the very end of these four centuries, the long Hellenistic period. I explore how processes of trade, predation on trade, and colonization and settlement increasingly connect the Adriatic basin until, after the Battle of Actium in 31 BC, it is finally possible to begin envisioning the Adriatic as a controllable whole. I call this process “continentalization,” a borrowing from Gérard Chouquere’s work on Mediterranean landscapes.3 At the beginning of the 4th century BC, the Adriatic is so fragmented as to make control of it impossible—there are simply not enough mechanisms of control to exert any kind of influence over the larger Adriatic, unlike Braudel’s Venetian Adriatic.