Stobi in Late Antiquity: Epigraphic Testimonia

chapter 11 Stobi in Late Antiquity: Epigraphic Testimonia

Slavica Babamova

Stobi was situated at the confluence of the Erigon and Axios rivers and at a crossroad of major Balkan routes in antiquity: the road going from the Aegean Sea to the Danube (i.e. the axis Thessalonica–Viminacium/Sirmium, which passed through Scupi and Naissus), the road which, following the river Astibo, went to Serdica via Astibo, Tranupara and Pautalia, and the section of the via Egnatia which started near Heraclea Lyncestis and followed the Erigon river (fig. 11.1). Stobi was mentioned for the first time by Livy who described it as a vetus urbs.1 A small town in Classical and Hellenistic times, it became the most important city in the middle of the Axios valley in the Roman period. Stobi was made the capital of the third meris when the province of Mace- donia was divided into four parts in 148BC. A centre for the sale of salt, it naturally became the most significant commercial centre in the region.2 Its geostrategic location probably influenced the legal status of the city in the early Roman period, which was unique in the eastern part of the empire: among the 150 cities of Macedonia listed by Pliny,3 Stobi was the only one called an oppidum civium Romanorum. According to Fanoula Papazoglou, the title was given to the city in the time of Caesar and was held until 30BC, when Stobi was granted the status of municipium, thus becoming the second municipium in the eastern part of the empire.4 It was populated by the native Paeonians and Macedonians, who intermingled with immigrants who had settled in Stobi. Located on the border between the eastern and western parts of the empire, Stobi was thus a place of cultural exchange and interaction and is an important witness to the historical and socio-cultural development of the Roman Empire. Latin inscriptions are as numerous as Greek inscriptions. As the official lan- guage of the empire, Latin is obviously found in many inscriptions. However,

1 Livy 39.53.15: … haud procul Stobis, vetere urbe. 2 Livy 45.29.13: … post non impetratam Paeoniam salis commercium dedit; tertiae regioni impe- ravit, ut Stobos Paeoniae deveherent, pretiumque statuit. 3 Pliny, Nat. 4.16. 4 F. Papazoglou, Les villes de Macédoine à l’époque romaine (BCHSup 16; Paris: de Boccard, 1988) 315–318.

figure 11.1 Stobi and the surrounding region map: S. Babamova just as in all the other eastern Roman provinces, Greek eventually prevailed and, from the second century onward, official documents were all inscribed in Greek. Being rarely mentioned in ancient literary sources, the early Roman history of Stobi is to be primarily reconstructed from the large amount of epigraphic material that relates to the social, economic, political and cultural life of the city. The history of the late antique city, on the other hand, can only be reconstructed through the meticulous archaeological excavation of the monumental structures that have survived at the site, as literary testimonia are rare and the number of inscriptions decreases significantly in late antiquity. Macedonia was later divided into two provinces, Macedonia Prima and Macedonia Salutaris, in the second half of the fourth century, most probably around AD388 when the emperor Theodosius I visited Stobi for the occasion.5

5 J. Wiseman, “The City in Macedonia Secunda,” in Villes et peuplement dans l’Illyricum proto- byzantin: Actes de colloque organisé par l’École française de Rome, Rome 12–14 mai 1982 (Rome: École française de Rome, 1984) 289–314, here 291.