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Roman Annexation of Asia Minor the Process of Roman Annexation

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Roman Annexation of Asia Minor the Process of Roman Annexation APPENDIX TWO ROMAN ANNEXATION OF ASIA MINOR The process of Roman annexation in Anatolia began with the province of Asia. In 133 BCE, Attalus III, the king of Pergamum, died and bequeathed his kingdom to the Romans.1 Soon thereafter Aristonicus, the illegitimate son of Eumenes II, gathered a group of followers and led a rebellion against Rome in an effort to seize the throne for himself.2 After a few initial suc- cesses (e.g., the defeat of the Roman consul Publius Licinius Crassus Mucianus), Aristonicus’ revolt was finally quelled in 130 BCE, when he was captured by Roman forces. But in spite of his victory, the triumphant Roman commander, Marcus Perperna, fell ill in Pergamum and died before he was able to return home with his spoils (Strabo, Geogr. 14.1.38; Eutropius, Brev. 4.20.2). Fortunately for the Romans, his replacement, Manius Aquilius, arrived on the scene just in time to put down the last of the insurgents. By 129 BCE the rebellion was crushed, and the kingdom of Attalus had been officially annexed and turned into a Roman province.3 1 OGIS no. 338; Livy, Per. 58; Sallust, Hist. 4.69; Strabo, Geogr. 13.4.2; Appian, Mith. 62; Bell. civ. 5.4; Plutarch, Tib. Grac. 14; Eutropius, Brev. 4.18. For the events leading up to this bequest, see Magie, Roman Rule, 3–33. 2 Strabo, Geogr. 14.1.38; Diodorus Siculus, Hist. 34.2.26; Livy, Per. 59; Eutropius, Brev. 4.20.1. The revolt can be dated in the late summer of 133 BCE, around the time of the death of Tiberius Gracchus (Appian, Bell. civ. 1.18). This date receives confirmation from the fact that prior to Aristonicus’ capture (130 BCE [SEG 36 (1986) no. 555]) Sulla describes four years of warfare (Appian, Mith. 62). 3 There is some disagreement over the exact date of the province’s founding. Some propose that it was founded upon Attalus’ death and subsequent bequest (e.g., Bernhardt Schleussner, “Die Gesandtschaftsreise des P. Scipio Nasica im Jahre 133/132 v. Chr. und die Provinzialisierung des Königreichs Pergamon,” Chiron 6 [1976] 97–112 [108]; Anthony D. Macro, “The Cities of Asia Minor under the Roman Imperium,” in ANRW [eds. H. Temporini and W. Haase; Part II, Principat 7.2; Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1980] 658–97 [663]). However, this seems to be ruled out by the fact that Asia was not a province at the time of Aristonicus’ rebellion (Strabo, Geogr. 14.1.38). Upon the death of Attalus, Rome had merely discussed accepting the inheritance (Livy, Per. 58; Plutarch, Tib. Grac. 14). Others claim that it took much more time and so place the founding at 126 BCE (e.g., Victor Chapot, La province romaine proconsulaire d’Asie depuis ses origines jusqu’à la fin du haut-empire [Paris: É. Bouillon, 1904] 13). Yet this seems a little too late given the evidence that Manius Aquillius, the Roman consul of 129 BCE, provided Asia with the first lex provinciae after Marcus Perpernas, who brought the war to an end, died of disease (CIL I2.2 nos. 646–651; Strabo, Geogr. 14.1.38). Given that the rebellion of Aristonicus appears to have been put down by 130 BCE (SEG 36 [1986] no. 555), it seems best to place the date of its founding at ca. 129 BCE (with Kent J. Rigsby, “The Era of the Province of Asia,” Phoenix 352 appendix two The province of Asia thus marked the first step in the process of Roman expansion in Asia Minor.4 In 74 BCE, Nicomedes IV, king of Bithynia, died without an heir (Appian, Mith. 71) and so bequeathed his kingdom to Rome.5 Following these events, the Senate voted to annex the territory and turn it into a Roman province.6 The task of organizing the new Bithynian territory was assigned to Marcus Juncus, the governor of Asia (Velleius Paterculus, Hist. Rom. 2.42.3), along with his quaestor, Q. Pompeius Bithynicus.7 The extent of Nicomedes’ kingdom is assumed to be that which had been established under Prusias II.8 To the North, the kingdom was bounded by the Euxine and to the West, by the Sea of Marmara, from the Bosporus to the Rhyndacus River. The eastern border was somewhat west of Heracleia Pontica, while the southern boundary appears to have been the Sangarius River.9 33 [1979] 39–47 [39–40]; A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Foreign Policy in the East: 168 BC to AD 1 [London: Duckworth, 1962] 9). 4 The annexation of the kingdom of Attalus held out enormous benefits for the people of Rome. Not only was there an influx of Italians citizens into the new province (see Jean- Louis Ferrary, “La création de la province d’Asie et la présence italienne en Asie Mineure,” in Les Italiens dans le monde Grec: IIe siècle av. J.-C.–Ier siècle ap. J.-C. Circulation, activités, intégration: Actes de la Table ronde, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, 14–16 Mai 1998 [eds. C. Müller and C. Hasenhohr; BCHSup 41; Paris: De Boccard, 2002] 133–46), many publicani were drawn in as well. For a history of the province prior to the time of Augustus, see Sviatoslav Dmitriev, “The History and Geography of the Province of Asia during Its First Hundred Years and the Provincialization of Asia Minor,” Athenaeum 93 (2005) 71–133. 5 Livy, Per. 93; Appian, Mith. 7; Bell civ. 1.111; Eutropius, Brev, 6.6; cf. Cicero, Agr. 2.40. 6 On the history of Pontus and Bithynia, see Mary F. Lewis, “A History of Bithynia under Roman Rule, 74 B.C.–14 A.D.,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Minnesota, 1973), and Christian Marek, Pontus et Bithynia: Die römischen Provinzen im Norden Kleinasiens (Mainz: Zabern, 2003). 7 In the winter of 75/74 BCE, Julius Caesar set out on a voyage to Rhodes but was cap- tured by pirates (Suetonius, Jul. 4; cf. Plutarch, Caes. 1.4, who incorrectly dates the event to an earlier year). After paying a ransom for his release, he was eventually able to apprehend his captors and transport them to Pergamum for punishment. It was then that his path crossed with that of Juncus, who failed to punish the pirates (Velleius Paterculus, Hist. Rom. 2.41.3–4; cf. Aulus Gellius, Noct. att. 5.13.6). From this, we can date Juncus’ governor- ship to 75/74 BCE. It is unclear, however, whether his office was prorogued or whether the task of organizing the province was carried out prior to the arrival of his successor in 74 BCE. On Q. Pompeius Bithynicus, see T. R. S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic (PM 15; New York: American Philological Association, 1951–52) 2:100. 8 For the geographical boundaries of Bithynia, see Magie, Roman Rule, 302–20; Lewis, “History of Bithynia,” 38–44. 9 Pliny, Nat. 5.43; Strabo, Geogr. 12.3.1, 7; 12.4.1–5. Strabo’s account of Bithynian and Pontic geography is not without discrepancies, see J. G. C. Anderson, “Some Questions Bearing on the Date and Composition of Strabo’s Geography,” in Anatolian Studies Presented to William Mitchell Ramsay (eds. W. H. Buckler and W. M. Calder; Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1923) 1–13 (esp. 5–10)..
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